SPEECH 


P 


OF 


MR.  WM.  C.  RIVES,  OF  VIRGINIA 


ON  MR.  McDUFFIE’S  PROPOSITION 


'■ 


TO  REPEAL  THE  TARIFF  ACT  OF  1842. 


DELIVERED  IN  THE  SENATE  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES,  MONDAY,  MAY  27,  1844. 


WASHINGTON: 

J.  A3TD  6^  S.  GIDSOK,  PIlIKTJlllS. 

1844. 


IX  h  0  T  d  £  3  23  la  >08  c™mCTn>. 


Mr.  RIVES  said  he  had  hitherto  abstained  from  taking  anv  part  in  this  debate,  because 
he  preferred  being  a  listener  to  the  able  and  instructive  arguments  of  other  gentlemen,, 
rather  than  to  obtrude,  with  an  anxiety  disproportioned  to  its  importance,  any  thing  he 
might  have  to  say,  on  the  attention  of  the  Senate.  And  he  begged  the  Senate  to  believe 
that  he  did  not  now  rise  to  enter  into  any  formal  or  systematic  discussion  of  the  subject 
which  had  so  long  occupied  its  attention.  A  large  majority  of  the  Senate,  he  had  no 
doubt,  had  long  since  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  bill  of  the  honorable  Senator  from 
South  Carolina,  (Mr.  McDuffie,)  is,  within  the  true  meaning  of  the  Constitution,  a 
“  bill  for  raising  revenue,”  and  that  it  cannot,  therefore,  properly  originate  in  this  branch 
of  the  Legislature.  But,  as  by  general  acquiescence  and  consent,  it  has  been  entertained 
as  a  theme  for  discussing  a  great  question  of  national  policy,  deeply  affecting  the  interests 
and  feelings  of  every  portion  of  the  Union,  he  desired,  before  the  vote  of  the  Senate  was 
taken  upon  it,  to  state,  as  briefly  as  he  could,  the  views  he  entertained  on  some  of  the 
^  questions  which  have  been  drawn  into  discussion. 

In  doing  so,  said  Mr.  R.,  I  shall  pass  by  all  topics  of  a  secondary  character,  and  ad¬ 
dress  myself  at  once  to  those  leading  and  general  principles  which  must  control,  with 
decisive  force,  the  policy  of  the  Government  in  regard  to  the  'great  interests  of  national 
industry,  as  they  are  affected  by  systems  of  public  revenue.  A  primary  and  essential 
element  in  the  solution  of  this  vexed  question  of  national  policy  is  involved  in  the  pre¬ 
liminary  enquiry,  what  is  the  best  mode,  upon  principles  purely  financial ,  of  raising  the 
necessary  revenue  for  the  support  of  Government?  I  had  supposed  that  this  was  a  ques¬ 
tion  hardly  open  to  any  serious  difference  of  opinion.  The  suggestions  we  have  seen 
from  time  to  time,  in  the  discussions  of  the  press  and  elsewhere,  in  favor  of  a  recurrence  to 
a  system  of  direct  taxation,  I  had  regarded  as  the  harmless  vagaries  of  individual  specu¬ 
lative  opinion.  But,  when  we  hear  gentlemen  of  the  authority  and  experience  in  ques¬ 
tions  of  finance,  of  the  Senator  from  New  Hampshire,  (Mr.  Woodbury,)  and  of  the  en¬ 
lightened  views  of  the  Senator  from  South  Carolina,  (Mr.  McDuffie,)  gravely  declaring 
their  opinions  as  practical  legislators  and  statesmen,  in  favor  of  substituting,  to  a  certain 
extent  and  under  certain  qualifications,  a  resort  to  direct  taxes  and  excises  for  the  present 
easy  and  almost  imperceptible  mode  of  supplying  the  public  Treasury,  the  subject  chal¬ 
lenges  investigation  and  enquiry  at  the  threshold.  The  Senator  from  New  Hampshire  says, 
if  therequisite  amount  of  revenue  is  not  yielded  by  imposts  within  a  given  limit,  to  wit,  20 
or  25  per  cent.,  which  he  denominates,  (rather  arbitrarily  I  must  be  permitted  to  say,)  the 
revenue  standard ,  then  we  should  have  recourse,  as  was  done  in  1794  and  1798,  to  di¬ 
rect  taxes  and  excises  for  the  residue  of  what  is  wanted  for  the  support  of  the  Govern¬ 
ment,  rather  than  to  exceed  that  limit.  And  the  Senator  from  South  Carolina,  complain¬ 
ing  that  the  weight  of  taxation  is  borne,  in  too  great  a  proportion  by  foreign  imports, 
contends  that  it  would  be  more  equitable  and  just  to  divide  the  burden  between  foreign 
and  domestic  manufactures,  subjecting  the  latter  to  an  excise  duty  equivalent  to  the  im¬ 
post  duty  levied  upon  the  former. 

[Here  the  two  Senators  explained. 

Mr.  Rives  resumed.  If  the  gentlemen  will  refer  to  their  printed  speeches,  they  will 
find  that  I  have,  in  no  degree,  overstated  their  respective  propositions,  by  which,  I  must 
confess,  I  was  not  a  little  startled,  when  they  were  first  announced  on  the  floor.  I  had 
supposed  that,  if  any  thing  had  been  conclusively  settled  by  the  most  approved  writers 
on  finance  and  political  economy,  as  well  as  by  the  experience  of  all  modern  govern¬ 
ments,  especially  our  own,  it  was  this — that  the  least  onerous  and  the  |east  objection- 


4 


able  of  all  the  modes  of  providing  for  the  support  of  Government,  and  the  exigencies  of 
the  public  service,  is  by  taxes  on  consumption  ;  and  that  of  taxes  on  consumption,  those 
most  consistent  with  the  genius  and  policy  of  free  States,  are  taxes  on  foreign  imports. 
1  he  considerations  which  recommend  them  are  almost  too  obvious  to  justify  a  repetition 
them  to  the  Senate.  In  the  first  place,  they  are  voluntary.  No  man  pays  them  who 
is  not  both  willing  and  able  to  pay  them,  or,  in  other  words,  who  does  not  choose  to 
purchase  the  articles  on  which  they  are  levied.  In  this  respect,  they  are  favorably  dis¬ 
tinguished  from  direct  taxes,  or  taxes  on  possessions ,  (as  the  latter  are  sometimes  de¬ 
nominated,)  from  which  there  is  no  escape,  “  being  destiny  unshunnable  as  death.” 

1  hese  taxes  on  the  consumption  of  foreign  goods  are,  moreover,  for  the  most  part,  the 
most  equal  kind  of  impositions,  being  generally  paid  according  to  the  wealth  and  ability 
of  the  contributors.  The  consumption,  or,  speaking  in  a  more  general  and  proper  sense, 
me  expense  of  individuals,  is,  ordinarily,  in  proportion  to  iheir  means  of  consumption  or 
ability  to  purchase  ;  and  the  amount  of  the  tax  paid  by  each  individual  in  this  mode 
being  exactly  regulated  by  his  consumption  or  expense,  the  tax  apportions  itself,  very 
fai r}y  in  the  ™ai?»  t0  the  wealth  and  ability  of  the  tax  payers.  If  any  person  finds  him¬ 
self  burdened  with  a  larger  portion  of  the  public  contributions,  through  this  channel, 
than  he  can  well  afford  to  pay,  he  has  only  to  retrench  his  expenses,  and  he  diminishes, 
at  the  same  moment  and  by  the  same  act,  the  amount  of  tax  he  pays.  A  motive  is  thus 
furnished  to  economy ,  the  habit  of  which  is  so  essential  to  the  accumulation  of  capital 
and  the  steady  progress  of  national  wealth.  These  taxes  are,  also,  the  least  burden¬ 
some,  because,  instead  of  being  paid  in  advance,  and  all  at  once,  as  other  taxes  are,  they 
are  paid  by  piece-meal  only,  as  the  articles  on  which  they  are  levied  are  required  for 
actual  use  and  consumption ;  and  being  then  merged  in  and  confounded  with  the  price  of 
the  article,  they  are  hardly  felt  as  a  public  burden  at  all. 

There  are  political  considerations  of  no  less  importance  which  recommend  them. 
The  machinery  and  process  of  their  collection  are  infinitely  more  simple,  and  attended 
with  far  less  of  vexation  and  expense,  than  those  which  belong  to  other  systems  of 
revenue.  There  is  no  harassing  domiciliary  visitation,  no  annoying  inquisitorial  ex¬ 
aminations  into  every  man’s  private  affairs,  to  reach  the  objects  of  them.  At  a  few 
p  oints  upon  the  seaboard,  through  the  agency  of  a  small  number  of  custom-houses,  you 
collect  a  revenue  of  twenty,  or  twenty-five,  or  thirty  millions  of  dollars,  with  the  utmost 
ease  and  convenience,  instead  of  overspreading  the  land  with  a  cloud  of  tax-gatherers,  like 
the  locusts  of  Egypt,  eating  out  the  substance  of  the  people— the  usual  and  unavoidable 
attendant  of  every  system  of  internal  taxation.  The  excessive  multiplication  of  offices,  and 
the  consequent  extension  of  Executive  patronage,  the  bane  of  public  liberty,  and  the  canker 
of  the  Treasury,  are  thus  avoided  ;  and,  in  the  same  proportion,  the  expenses  of  collection 
are  diminished.  The  first  report  of  Mr.  Gallatin  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  made  in 
1801,  shows  that  the  expense  of  collecting  the  various  internal  taxes,  which  existed  under 
.the  preceding  administration,  was  equivalent  to  20  per  cent.,  while  that  of  collecting  the 
customs  was  but  4  per  cent.  There  is  a  further  consideration  of  great  importance,  under 
our  particular  political  system,  in  favor  of  supplying  the  Federal  Treasury  by  external 
duties.  It  is  the  General  Government  only  which  is  endowed  with  the  power  of  raisins 
revenue  from  the  foreign  commerce  of  the  country.  The  States  are  thrown  exclusively 
•on  the  resources  of  internal  taxation  for  their  support.  We  should  never  therefore  cre¬ 
ate  a  surcharge  on  those  resources,  by  encroaching  on  the  domain  of  State  taxation,  but 
in  cases  of  inevitable  necessity. 

The  honorable  Senator  from  New  Hampshire,  (Mr.  Woodbury,)  was  unfortunate,  I 
thought,  Mr.  President,  in  referring  us  to  the  financial  examples  of  1794  and  1798,  for 
imitation.  Those,  I  had  supposed,  were  examples  for  avoidance,  not  for  imitation.  Are 
the  monitory  lessons  of  the  past  lost  so  soon  in  oblivion.  Has  the  honorable  Senator  forgot 
the  whiskey  insurrection — a  popular  rebellion  produced  by  the  odium  of  an  excise  tax — a 
sentiment  so  deep  and  strong  that  not  even  the  reverence  for  the  character  and  person  of 
General  W ashington,  then  at  the  head  of  the  Government,  cquld  prevent  it  from  breaking  out 
into  open  resistance  to  the  authority  and  execution  of  the  law?  Has  the  honorable  Sen- 


o 


ator  forgotten  the  odium  produced  by  the  direct  tax  of  Mr.  Adams  in  1798,  which  for 
the  paltry  sum  of  two  millions  of  dollars,  covered  the  land  with  a  host  of  revenue  officer8, 
assessors,  inspectors,  supervisors,  commissioners,  and  collectors?  Has  he  forgotten  the 
moral  resistance  awakened  in  the  minds  of  the  people  by  the  carnage  tax ,  the  stamp 
tax ,  and  the  other  fiscal  expedients  of  that  discredited  era  of  internal  taxation— measures 
which,  we  have  the  authority  of  the  most  enlightened  contemporary  observers  ior  say¬ 
ing,  contributed  even  more  than  the  alien  and  sedition  laws,  to  overwhelm  that  ill-tateU 

administration  with  popular  disgrace?  ....  ,  r  .  ,  ,  .  ,  ,  •  i,  ti.p 

I  had  supposed  there  were  examples  in  our  political  and  financial  history  which  the 
honorable  Senator  from  New  Hampshire,  distinguished  discip'e  as  he  is  of  the  democratic 
school,  would  have  preferred  looking  back  to  for  instruction.  I  had  supposed  he  would 
have  preferred  deriving  his  lessons  from  the  great  “Civil  Revolution  of  1801,  as  it 
has  been  called,  when  the  first  and  leading  act  of  Mr.  Jefferson  was  to  recommend  an 
immediate  repeal  of  all  the  internal  taxes  of  the  preceding  administration.  1  he  repea 
was  accordingly  made  by  one  of  the  earliest  acts  of  the  new  Congress;  and  m  his  secoud 
inaugural  address,  Mr.  Jefferson,  in  reviewing  the  results  of  the  first  term  ol  his  ad¬ 
ministration,  dwells  on  nothing  with  so  much  c  ngratulation  to  the  country,  as  well  as 
pride  and  complacency  in  regard  to  the  merits  of  his  own  conduct,  as  the  change  he  had 
.assisted  to  introduce  in  the  financial  policy  of  the  Government,  by  a  total  discontinuance 
of  the  system  of  internal  taxes.  What  he  says  on  the  subject  is  so  full  of  just  and  in¬ 
structive  observation,  that  I  may  be  excused  for  reading  it  to  the  Senate,  which  I  am  the 
more  tempted  to  do,  as  the  remarks  of  the  Senator  from  New  Hampshire  show  that  it 
may  be  neither  an  useless  nor  unseasonable  reminiscence. 

“  At  home,  fellow  citizens,”  says  Mr.  Jefferson,  “  you  best  know  whether  we  have 
done  well  or  ill.  The  suppression  of  unnecessary  offices,  of  useless  establishments 
and  expenses,  enabled  us  to  discontinue  our  internal  taxes.  These,  covering  our  land 
with  officers,  and  opening  our  doors  to  their  intrusions,  had  already  begun  that  process 
of  domiciliary  vexation  which,  once  entered,  is  scarcely  to  be  restrained  from  reaching 
successively  every  article  of  property  and  produce.  If  among  these  taxes  some  minor 
ones  fell,  which  had  not  been  inconvenient,  it  was  because  their  amount  would  not  have 
paid  the  officer  who  collected  them,  and  because,  if  they  had  any  merit,  the  State  au¬ 
thorities  might  adopt  them,  instead  of  others  less  approved.  The  remaining  revenue 
on  the  consumption  of  foreign  articles  is  paid  chiefly  by  those  who  can  afford  to  add 
foreign  luxuries  to  domestic  comforts.  Being  collected  on  our  seaboard  and  frontier 
only,  and  incorporated  with  the  transactions  of  our  mercantile  citizens,  it  may  be  the 
pleasure  and  the  pride  of  an  American  to  ask,  what  farmer,  what  mechanic,  what  laborer 
ever  sees  a  tax-gatherer  of  the  United  States  ?”  ... 

The  honorable  Senator  from  New  Hampshire  fell  into  a  chronological  mistake  m  re¬ 
ferring  to  the  year  1812  for  another  example  of  direct  taxes  and  excise,  which  deserves 
the  more  to  be  noticed  because  the  continued  adherence  to  the  system  of  external  du¬ 
ties,  under  the  very  exigent  and  embarrassing  circumstances  of  that  period,  furnishes 
the  strongest  possible  testimony  of  the  opinion  held  by  the  able  and  enlightened  men 
then  employed  in  the  administration  of  the  Government,  of  the  preference  due  to  im¬ 
posts,  over  every  other  mode  of  supplying  the  public  necessities.  The  wai  with  Eng¬ 
land  was  declared  in  June,  1812  ;  and  although  it  brought  with  it  necessarily  a  demand 
for  a  large  increase  of  revenue,  while  its  effect  would,  in  all  probability,  be  to  curtail 
very  much  the  foreign  commerce,  which,  for  the  last  ten  years,  had  been  the  only 
source  of  supply  to°the  Treasury  of  any  moment,  still  the  Government  did  not  at  that 
time,  as  the  Senator  from  New  Hampshire  supposes,  resort  to  direct  taxes  and  excises. 
■Qq  the  contrary,  Mr.  Gallatin,  who  was  then  at  the  head  of  the  Treasury  Depaitment, 
recommended  an  increase  of  100  per  cent .  in  the  pre-existing  rates  of  duties  on  foreign 
imports,  rather  than  have  recourse  to  direct  taxes  or  excises  ;  and  this  recommendation 
was  carried  into  effect  by  an  act  of  Congress,  passed  in  July,  1812,  raising  the  imposts 
100  per  cent.  No  excise  or  direct  tax  was  imposed  till  late  in  the  summer  of  1813, 
more  than  twelve  months  after  the  declaration  of  war,  and  when  the  continuance  of  the 


I 


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7^^  *at  it  became  literal* 

which  °l  ^  hr^  difficulties 

mces77y— theUduties  7*7 Importalio^— ^source  o7re 7 

^^“s,  J5  retriThetafo*1 t  EA 

mented  by  the  vast  accumulation  of  debt  durin/thf/wn^  ,rreasur>r  (greatly  aug- 
were  renealed  •  and  1  warj  would  admit,  all  these  taxes 

InnualCrt’of^ ISltwas “^i^0"  °f  Mr'  DalIas-  f“  ^ 
on  the  domestic  manufactures  of  the  countrJ  ul7 ’i  e8?eci?] Ur>  of  that  description  of  tax 
Carolina  (Mr.  McDt^rS  seen  sTo  favor  7  h°norable  Senator  from  South 

17  mischievous,  in  ii  tenie^cy  to  obst^’t  aSd^etard  ^  “  P?*^ 

Since  the  repeal  of  those  war  taxe  Z  r!/  pr°Sress  of  national  industry. 

for  more  thaw  a  quarter  of  a  century,  ’in  the  policy  of  n’  n^  Persevered* 

great  weight  which  I  freely  admit  to  bp  r1nP  t  fp  g  •  ers.on  and  Gallatin  ;  and  the 
New  Hampshire  will  hardly  WW  th  d  *  *th®  hnancial  opinions  of  the  Senator  from 
precedents  of  1794  rndmi  ^  C°  7  t0  retUm  t0  the  °bsolete  and  GXP^ded 

March,  1789,  to  thi  31st  of  December 1840  The 111  “?  T7  fr°m  .the  4,h  of 

this  period  of  fifty- two  years  is  $892  240  722  f  L  ?g  ,  ga  e  of  these  recelPts>  during 
923  302  was  derived  fml  ’<  ®89~’340>7d3>  of  which  the  enormous  amount  of  $746,  - 
and  829  f  ™  customs  alone,  while  $12,744,73  only  came  from  direct  taxes 

=^^SSSsS^SSSsS 

SS~5;:5}ESS9ig 

the  energies  of  the  nation,  but  always  ceasing  wheneve^  the  enfergencyTe’ases 
constitution^l'reMrfct^^^t'i^saulfthat^lth^'ugl^a 'belefit'm "S  “fd  °'le 

»«.  ,"S  »£  trr^r;*  ^  f~  ste 

the  most  approved  formula  of  the  political  school  which  has  aCdlw  7  'S  10 
tion  of  dunes,  you  may  discriminate  for  the  sake  of  revenue,  lit  you  alffl 

*  Mr.  Gallatin’s  Annual  Report  on  the  Finances,  in  November,  1807. 


# 


7 


nate  for  the  benefit  of  the  labor  and  the  capital,  which  are  the  only  sources  of  both 
public  and  private  revenue. 

1  will  venture  to  assert,  that  so  inexorable  and  Rhadamanthian  a  rule  was  never  prac¬ 
tised  upon  by  any  Government  under  the  sun — not  even  in  the  sheerest  and  most  naked 
exercise  of  the  taxing  power.  It  would  convert  the  office  of  raising  revenue  for  the 
support  of  Government  into  a  summary  act  of  confiscation,  and  reduce  the  skill  of  the 
financier  (which  Burke  and  others  have  exalted  into  the  dignity  of  the  highest  political 
science)  to  the  mere  arts  of  a  fiscal  extortioner.  All  the  writers  on  political  economy 
and  finance  lay  down  rules  of  preference  and  selection  in  the  imposition  of  taxes, 
having  reference  to  their  effects  on  industrial  interests,  on  public  morals,  and  the  general 
oase  and  convenience  of  the  people,  as  well  as  to  their  productiveness  of  revenue.  In 
every  civilized  Government,  the  authority  which  imposes  taxes  to  supply  the  exigen¬ 
cies  of  the  public  service,  seeks  to  impose  them  in  the  manner  which  may  prove  the 
most  beneficial,  or  the  least  injurious  to  the  general  interests  of  society.  Hence  in 
many  countries  taxes  are  laid  by  preference,  which,  while  they  yield  the  requisite  reve¬ 
nue,  discourage  vice,  or  check  extravagance  and  luxury.  In  every  country  in  which 
industry  and  the  arts  have  made  any  progress,  many  foreign  articles  which  are  made 
use  of,  as  raw  materials  or  otherwise,  in  established  branches  of  domestic  manufactures, 
are  either  exempted  from  duty,  or  subjected  to  lighter  duties,  with  a  view  solely  to  pro¬ 
mote  production  in  those  particular  trades,  and  a  consequent  increase  of  national  wealth, 

But  I  will  not  enter  further  into  this  view  of  the  doctrine,  which  has  been  recently  set 
up  as  a  new  standard  of  political  faith.  There  is  a  radical  error  in  it  under  the  particu¬ 
lar  provisions  of  our  Constitution,  which  it  is  more  important  to  notice.  It  wholly 
overlooks,  or  rather  annihilates,  a  vital  and  fundamental  power  of  the  Constitution— -the 
power  to  “regulate  commerce  with  foreign  nations.”  If  there  be  any  proposition, 
connected  with  the  history  and  meaning  of  the  Constitution,  which  rests  upon  more  in¬ 
controvertible  proofs  than  another,  it  is  that  the  power  to  regulate  commerce  with  foreign 
nations  directly  and  necessarily  includes  the  power  to  protect  domestic  industry  by 
burthens  and  restrictions  imposed  upon  foreign  productions.  It  is  a  very  narrow  and 
inadequate  conception  of  the  scope  and  operation  of  an  impost  duty  which  sees  in  it 
nothing  but  a  fiscal  resource.  It  is  at  the  same  time,  and  equally,  a  regulation  of  com¬ 
merce.  If  gentlemen  will  look  back  to  the  proceedings  on  that  fundamental  act  of  our 
legislation — the  act  of  1789,  for  laying  duties  on  foreign  imports — they  will  see  that  Mr. 
Madison,  in  introducing  the  bill,  expressly  stated  that  it  presented  two  points  for  consi¬ 
deration — the  first  respected  the  regulation  of  commerce — the  second  related  to  revenue. 
One  of  the  most  familiar  and  ordinary  means  or  instruments  of  regulating  commerce  is 
the  imposition  of  duties ;  and  one  of  the  most  ordinary  and  familiar  exertions  of  the 
power  to  regulate  commerce  with  foreign  nations,  is  to  impose  duties  on  foreign  pro¬ 
ductions  in  order  to  encourage  and  promote  rival  branches  of  industry  at  home. 

The  commercial  legislation  of  all  countries,  which  have  attained  any  degree  of  im¬ 
portance  in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  abounds  with  examples  of  this  use  of  the  power. 
In  England  particularly,  from  whose  political  and  Commercial  vocabulary  the  phrase 
was  transplanted  into  our  constitutional  and  popular  language,  this  had  been  its  well 
known  use  and  application  for  centuries.  It  was  rendered  doubly  familiar,  in  this  sense, 
to  the  mind  of  every  man  in  America,  from  its  having  entered  so  largely  into  our  colo¬ 
nial  controversies  with  the  mother  country.  The  distinction  upon  which  we  stood,  as 
every  person  who  has  the  slightest  knowledge  of  the  history  of  his  country  well 
knows,  was  this — that  Great  Britain  had  no  right  to  tax  the  trade  of  the  colonies,  with¬ 
out  their  consent,  for  revenue ,  but  as  the  parent  and  presiding  power,  she  had  the  ad¬ 
mitted  right  to  do  so  for  the  regulation  of  commerce — that  is,  to  impose  duties  on  the 
productions  of  foreign  countries  coming  to  the  colonies,  with  a  view  to  restrain  and 
discourage  their  introduction,  and  thereby  secure  the  market  of  the  colonies  to  her  own 
manufactures.  This  was  the  conceded  and  well  understood  extent  and  operation  of  the 
power  to  regulate  commerce  in  all  our  ante-revolutionary  history. 

In  that  period  of  our  history  which  followed  the  close  of  the  revolution,  and  immedi- 


I 


8 


ately  preceded  the  formation  of  the  Constitution — a  period  which,  from  the  inadequacy 
of  the  Articles  of  Confederation  to  provide  for  the  new  wants  of  an  independent  national 
existence,  was  filled  with  every  variety  of  embarrassment,  suffering,  and  distress,  and 
which  has  been  aptly  compared  to  the  journey  of  the  Israelites  through  the  wilderness — 
the  power  to  regulate  commerce ,  with  its  vitally  important  objects  and  uses,  again  be¬ 
came  a  paramount  and  absorbing  subject  of  public  solicitude  and  discussion.  In  conse¬ 
quence  of  the  want  of  any  such  power  on  the  part  of  the  federal  authority,  and  the  vari¬ 
ous  and  conflicting  regulations  of  the  several  States  nullifying  and  defeating  each  other, 
the  condition  of  the  country,  in  all  the  great  interests  of  the  national  industry,  had 
become  one  of  the  most  melancholy  and  ruinous  depression.  Our  ports  being  thrown 
open  to  the  admission  of  foreign  merchandise,  with  hardly  any  restriction,  while  our 
own  produce  and  trade  were  either  prohibited  or  subjected  to  burdensome  and  oppres¬ 
sive  restrictions  in  other  countries,  the  consequence  was  the  total  prostration  of  the 
energies  of  American  industry  and  enterprise  in  all  their  departments,  under  this  unequal 
state  of  things.  The  useful  branches  of  manufactures  which  had  sprung  into  existence 
during  the  war  of  the  revolution,  and  had  been  gradually  extending  themselves,  were 
overwhelmed  by  the  inundation  of  foreign  goods  which  was  thus  let  in  upon  the  coun¬ 
try  ;  agriculture  was  shut  out  from  the  markets  it  had  been  accustomed  to  find  abroad, 
for  its  surplus  productions,  and  our  navigation  was  driven  from  the  ocean,  and  threatened 
with  destruction,  by  the  unfriendly  discriminations  and  exclusive  regulations  of  other 
maritime  powers.  The  result  of  this  state  of  things  was  a  vast  and  constantly  increasing 
accumulation  of  foreign  debt,  without  the  means  of  paying  it,  weighing  like  an  incubus 
upon  the  national  spirits  and  resources,  and  paralyzing  every  limb  of  the  national  enter¬ 
prise.  It  was  to  remedy  these  appalling  evils,  and  expressly  and  emphatically  to  protect 
all  of  these  great  interests  of  American  industry,  that  the  country  called  loudly  for  the 
investiture  of  the  power  to  regulate  commerce  with  foreign  nations  in  the  authorities 
of  the  Union,  by  which  alone  it  could  be  efficiently  exercised. 

It  was  by  the  salutary  agency  of  this  power,  in  the  hands  of  the  federal  authority, 
that  all  these  beneficent  and  important  results  were  to  be  accomplished.  Protection  of 
domestic  interests  was  the  end,  the  motive,  the  vital  essence  of  the  power  over  foreign, 
commerce  delegated  by  the  new  Constitution  to  Congress.  But  surely,  Mr.  President, 
it  would  be  a  labor  of  presumptuous  supererogation  in  me  to  detain  the  Senate  with  the 
discussion  of  a  question  which  has  received  so  conclusive  an  elucidation  from  the  hands 
of  the  h  ather  of  the  Constitution  himself.  I  need  hardly  say,  sir,  that  1  refer  to  the 
letters  of  Mr.  Madison,  addressed  to  a  citizen  of  Virginia  in  1 828,  in  which  he  has 
shown  by  the  most  luminous  development,  and  with  a  weight  of  authority  which  at¬ 
taches  to  no  other  name  on  questions  of  constitutional  construction,  that  this  very  power 
of  regulating  commerce  with  foreign  nations  embraces  fully,  and  was  meant  to  embrace, 
the  encouragement  and  protection  of  the  domestic  industry  of  the  country  bv  impost 
duties  adapted  to  the  object,  whenever  the  wisdom  of  Congress  should  deem  the  exer¬ 
cise  of  the  power  expedient  and  proper.  On  that  demonstration  the  general  intelligence- 
of  the  country  has  reposed,  and  may  well  repose,  with  undoubting  confidence. 

It  may  not  be  amiss,  however,  Mr.  President,  to  advert  for  a  few  moments  to  the  prac¬ 
tical  construction  of  their  powers  on  this  subject,  established  by  the  first  Congress  which 
assembled  under  the  Constitution.  That  Comgress  consisted  of  some  of  the  first  minds 
of  America,  and  in  a  very  large  number,  of  the  same  individuals  who  had  been  members,, 
either  of  the  Federal  Convention  which  framed  the  Constitution,  or  of  the  several  State 
conventions  which  had  ratified  it.  If  any  body  of  men,  therefore,  could  be  presumed  to 
be  qualified,  above  all  others,  to  know  the  true  meaning  and  spirit  of  the  Constitution 
which  they  had  so  large  a  personal  agency  in  framing,  and  which  they  were  now  called 
on  to  put  into  practical  operation,  it  was  the  collection  of  able  and  experienced  statesmen, 
who  composed  the  Congress  of  ’89.  And  here,  sir,  I  may  be  permitted  to  remark  that 
contemporaneous  construction  is,  in  my  judgment,  the  safest  guide  to  the  meaning  and 
intention  of  political  institutions,  as  it  has  always  been  held  to  be  in  the  interpretation  of 
laws  on  which  the  rights,  and  interests,  and  responsibilities  of  individuals  in  civil  life 


9 


depend.  In  either  case,  the  object  is  to  arrive  at  the  real  intention  of  those  who  made 
the  law,  or  founded  and  agreed  to  the  Constitution ;  and  surely  this  can  be  better  learned 
from  the  parties  who  were  engaged  in  the  transaction,  or  their  associates  or  contempo¬ 
raries,  than  from  scholiasts  and  commentators  who,  by  new  and  ingenious  interpreta¬ 
tions,  bring  to  light  some  recondite  and  hitherto  undiscovered  and  unavowed  policy  or 
design. 

In  this  view,  the  proceedings  of  the  Congress  of  ’89  are  of  the  highest  importance. 
The  act  passed  by  them  laying  duties  on  foreign  imports  was,  as  we  all  know,  de¬ 
clared  upon  its  own  face  to  be  “  for  the  encouragement  and  protection  of  manufactures,” 
as  well  as  for  obtaining  revenue  for  the  support  of  the  Government  and  the  discharge  of 
the  public  debt.  But  the  Senator  from  New  Hampshire  (Mr.  Atherton)  who  addressed 
the  Senate  yesterday,  contended  that  the  duties  in  the  act  of  ’89  were  laid  with  a  view  to  re¬ 
venue  alone,  and  ingeniously  argued,  that  if  the  act  was  declared  to  be  also  “for  the  encou¬ 
ragement  and  protection  of  manufactures,”  it  was  only  because  the  enlightened  framers  of  it 
thought  mere  revenue  duties  sufficient  for  protection.  But  this  supposititious  explanation 
of  the  character  of  the  act  is  contradicted  by  the  whole  course  of  the  debate  which  took 
place  upon  it.  The  principle  of  protection ,  as  a  substantive  element  in  the  bill,  was 
avowed  or  admitted  by  every  member  who  took  part  in  the  debate.  When  a  long  list  of 
articles  for  specific  duties  was  offered  to  be  added  to  those  embraced  in  the  original  pro¬ 
position  of  Mr.  Madison — articles  which  were  finally  incorporated  in  the  bill — he  ac¬ 
cepted  them,  expressly  declaring  that  some  of  the  proposed  duties  may  be  “  productive 
of  revenue ,”  and  some  may  “  protect  our  domestic  manufactures  "  thus  distinguishing 
them  into  separate  classes,  as  having  revenue  or  protection  respectively  for  their  object, 
though  combined  in  the  same  bill.  On  the  following  day,  Mr.  Clymer,  of  Pennsylvania, 
adverting  to  the  character  of  the  act,  said  he  “  did  not  object  to  this  mode  of  encourag¬ 
ing  manufactures  and  obtaining  revenue  by  combining  the  two  objects  in  one  bill. 
He  was  satisfied  there  was  a  political  necessity  for  the  one  and  the  other ,  and  it  would 
not  be  amiss  to  do  it  in  this  way.” 

If  the  honorable  Senator  will  look  a  little  further  into  the  detail  of  the  legislative  pro¬ 
ceedings  on  that  occasion,  he  will  find  various  articles  brought  forward  day  after  day  on 
the  express  ground  of  meriting  encouragement  by  means  of  protecting  duties.  The 
House  of  Representatives  was  engaged  for  weeks,  in  committee  of  the  whole,  in  an 
emulous  selection  of  objects  connected  with  the  agriculture  or  manufactures  of  the  coun¬ 
try,  which  were  supposed  to  have  the  strongest  claims  to  legislative  protection.  One 
of  the  most  singular  results  disclosed  by  this  review — and  I  beg  leave  to  call  the  atten¬ 
tion  of  my  honorable  friend  from  South  Carolina  (Mr.  McDuffie)  to  it,  that  he  may 
correct  me  if  I  have  fallen  into  error — is,  that  that  very  interest  of  the  cotton  culture, 
which  of  late  years  has  been  most  violently  arrayed  against  the  principle  of  protection, 
in  all  probability  took  its  origin,  as  a  stable  and  regular  branch  of  national  industry,  in 
the  protective  and  beneficent  provisions  of  the  act  of  ’89. 

I  find,  on  looking  into  the  debates  on  that  occasion,  that,  the  duty  on  hemp  being 
under  consideration,  Mr.  Burke,  a  member  from  South  Carolina,  warmly  advocated  it, 
believing  that  the  lands  of  South  Carolina  and  Georgia  were  well  adapted  to  its  growth. 
He  stated  that  the  staple  products  of  that  part  of  the  Union  (meaning  doubtless  rice  and 
indigo)  were  hardly  worth  cultivating,  on  account  of  their  fall  in  price  ;  that  the  planters 
were  therefore  disposed  to  pursue  some  other;  that  hemp,  he  thought,  might  be 
attempted  by  them  with  advantage ;  and  he  added,  “  cotton  is  likewise  in  contempla¬ 
tion  among  them ,  and  if  good  seed  could  be  procured,  he  hoped  it  might  succeed." 
This  was  on  the  1 6th  of  April,  ’89.  The  bill  was  returned  from  the  Senate  on  the  12th 
of  June,  with  an  amendment  imposing  three  cents  per  pound  on  cotton,  which  was  con¬ 
curred  in  by  the  House,  and  at  that  rate  the  duty  on  cotton  has  ever  since  stood,  through 
all  the  successive  mutations  of  the  tariff  in  other  respects,  from  1789  to  the  present  time. 

Now,  sir,  it  happens,  by  a  very  remarkable  coincidence,  that  this  very  year,  1789 
is  noted  in  the  history  of  the  cotton  trade,  as  the  era  of  the  first  introduction  of  the  sea- 
island  cotton  into  the  United  States,  and  of  the  permanent  establishment  of  the  cotton. 


10 


calture  generally,  as  a  systematic  branch  of  American  agriculture  in  the  southern  States 
of  the  Union.  The  circumstances  attending  the  first  essay  in  the  culture  of  the  sea-island 
cotton  in  the  United  States,  as  given  by  the  historians  of  a  trade  which  has  produced  so 
o-reat  a  revolution  in  the  industry  and  commerce  of  the  world,  are  so  curious  in  this 
particular  connexion,  that  they  deserve  to  be  mentioned.  It  appears  that  a  West  India 
planter,  who  had  removed  to  Georgia  for  the  purpose  of  engaging  in  the  culture  of  cotton, 
received  from  a  friend  in  Jamaica,  in  the  spring  of  1786,  several  sacks  of  the  Pernam¬ 
buco  cotton  seed.  No  use,  however,  was  made  of  these  seeds  until  1789,  when  a  suc¬ 
cessful  experiment  was  made  with  them,  to  which  is  traced  the  first  introduction  of  the 
culture  of  the  sea-island  cotton  into  the  United  States  ;  and  from  the  same  epoch  is  dated 
the  introduction,  to  any  considerable  extent,  of  the  cultivation  of  the  upland  cotton,  and  the 
permanent  establishment  of  the  cotton  plant  as  a  staple  production  of  the  United  States.* 

This  coincidence  between  the  first  establishment  of  the  cotton  culture  as  a  branch  of 
national  industry,  and  the  protective  duty  of  ’89,  may,  after  all,  it  is  true,  be  a  fortuitous 
association;  but  it  certainly  is  no  violent  presumption  to  suppose  that  the  countenance 
and  encouragement  thus  extended  by  the  legislature  to  an  infant  enterprise,  in  its  first 
feeble  efforts  to  maintain  itself,  gave  a  confidence  and  security  to  all  engaged  in  it,  which 
contributed  greatly  to  its  successful  and  firm  establishment. 

(Mr.  McDuffie  here  said  that  it  was  a  low  duty,  not  averaging,  at  that  time,  more 
than  ten  per  cent,  of  the  price  of  the  article,  and  was  imposed  for  revenue.) 

The  protective  duties  then  imposed,  said  Mr.  Rives,  were  all  moderate,  as  the  Sena¬ 
tor  from  South  Carolina  has  himself  shown,  it  being  deemed  expedient,  as  will  be  seen 
by  reference  to  the  debates,  to  begin  with  moderate  duties,  and  to  increase  them  after¬ 
wards,  by  degrees,  as  should  be  found  necessary.  Whatever  proportion  the  duty  of  3 
cents  per  pound  on  cotton  may  have  borne  to  the  price  of  the  article  at  that  time,  we 
know  that,  for  years  past,  it  has  been  equivalent  to  from  thirty  to  fifty  percent.  ad  valo¬ 
rem.  That  it  was  high  enough  at  first  to  operate  as  a  material  protection  to  the  planter 
is,  I  think,  clearly  proved  by  the  earnest  recommendation  of  General  Hamilton,  in  his 
report  on  manufactures  in  1791,  to  repeal  it,  as  highly  injurious  to  the  interests  of  the 
cotton  manufacturer.  The  Senator  from  South  Carolina  will  see,  if  he  will  turn  to  that 
report,  that  General  Hamilton  considered  the  duty  high  enough  to  be,  in  the  language 
of  the  report,  “  a  very  serious  impediment  to  the  progress  of  the  cotton  manufactories.” 
The  cotton  then  produced  in  the  southern  States  was  considered  of  an  inferior  quality  to 
that  imported  from  abroad ;  and  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  deeming  it  to  be  of  great 
importance  to  the  success  of  the  infant  cotton  manufactures,  just  starting  into  existence, 
that  they  should  have  “  the  full  benefit.of  the  best  materials  on  the  cheapest  terms,”  ear¬ 
nestly  urged  the  repeal  of  the  duty,  as  indispensable  ”  for  that  object.  All  this,  sure¬ 
ly,  implies  such  an  enhancement  of  price  from  the  operation  of  the  duty,  or  such  a  dim¬ 
inution  of  the  supply  of  the  foreign  article  under  its  effects,  as  to  be  a  virtual  protection 
to  the  American  planter,  at  the  expense  of  the  manufacturer.  At  the  same  time,  he  pro¬ 
posed,  as  a  substitute  for  the  duty  on  imported  cotton,  a  bounty  on  the  domestic  cotton; 
thus  recognising,  by  the  nature  of  the  substitute,  the  protective  character  of  the  duty  he 
proposed  to  repeal!  Notwithstanding  the  urgent  recommendation  of  General  Hamilton, 
the  duty  was  not  repealed,  nor  has  it  been  repealed  or  reduced,  down  to  the  present  day. 
Can  it  be  supposed,  if  there  was  no  other  interest  involved  but  that  of  the  trifling  revenue 
it  yielded,  it  could  have  withstood  such  a  recommendation,  coming  from  so  high  and  so 
influential  an  official  source  ? 

But,  sir,  to  return  from  what  seemed  to  me  a  curious  episode,  at  least,  in  the  history 
of  this  question,  and  into  which  I  have  been  drawn  at  greater  length  than  I  intended — 
Nothing  is  more  incontrovertible  than  the  numerous  and  prominent  protective  features 
in  the  act  of  1789.  Let  any  gentleman  look  into  the  instructive  debates  which  took 
place  on  that  occasion,  and  he  will  see  at  once  how  largely  the  consideration  of  protec¬ 
tion  entered  into  the  very  foundation  of  that  act.  A  series  of  duties  on  various  produc- 

*Sec  White’s  History  of  the  Cottou  Manufacture,  cited  in  Hunt’s  Merchants’  Magazine  for  March,  1S41.  Art.  1,  “The 
American  Cotton  Trade.  , 


11 


tions  of  agriculture  or  manufactures — distilled  spirits,  beer,  ale,  porter,  cheese,  soap, 
candles,  boots,  shoes,  and  other  manufactures  of  leather,  steel,  nails,  spikes,  hemp,  cor¬ 
dage,  manufactured  tobacco  and  snuff,  coal,  glass,  paper,  &c.,  &c.,  was  proposed  and 
carried,  expressly  and  avowedly  with  a  view  to  the  protection  and  encouragement  of  the 
domestic  industry  of  the  country.  Revenue  and  protection  went  hand  in  hand  through 
the  provisions  of  the  act,  as  substantive  but  associated  objects,  in  the  minds  of  the  en¬ 
lightened  legislature  of  that  day.  The  foundations  of  our  national  policy  were  laid  on 
the  union  of  these  two  elements,  by  the  wise  men  who  had  had  the  chief  agency  in  the 
formation  of  the  Constitution,  and  who  were  first  called  to  the  practical  administration 
of  its  powers. 

All  this  took  place  during  the  first  session  of  the  first  Congress  which  assembled  un¬ 
der  the  Constitution.  The  principle,  then  settled,  met  with  a  yet  more  emphatic  con¬ 
tinuation,  by  the  unanimous  voice  of  the  representatives  of  the  people,  at  the  succeed¬ 
ing  session  of  the  same  Congress  ;  which,  as  it  has  not  hitherto  been  noticed,  so  far  as 
I  know,  I  may  be  excused  for  bringing  to  the  recollection  of  the  Senate.  The  first 
speech,  (as  it  was  called,)  of  General  Washington  to  Congress  was  made  in  January, 
17h0,  at  the  second  session  of  that  body.  In  the  course  of  the  speech,  he  congratulated 
Congress  that  “  the  measures  of  the  last  session  had  proved  satisfactory  to  their  con¬ 
stituents,  recommended  to  them  “  the  advancement  of  agriculture,  commerce,  and  man¬ 
ufactures  by  all  proper  means,”  and  declared  with  emphatic  earnestness  that  “  the  safety 
and  interest  of  a  free  people  require  that  they  should  promote  such  manufactories  as  tend 
to  render  them  independent  of  other  nations  for  essential,  particularly  military,  supplies.” 
To  this  speech  the  House  of  Representatives  returned  an  address,  (as  the  usage  then 
was,)  in  which  they  say— “We  concur  with  you  in  the  sentiment  that  agriculture, com¬ 
merce,  and  manufactures  are  entitled  to  legislative  protection;”  and  though  the  draught  of 
the  address,  as  reported,  underwent  several  amendments  in  the  House,  none  was  pro¬ 
posed  to  this  important  passage,  and  the  address  containing  it  was,  as  the  journal  states, 
unanimously  agreed  to  by  the  House.  The  principle  of  protection,  carried  into  practi¬ 
cal  details  in  the  act  of  89,  at  the  first  session  of  the  first  Congress  which  met  under 
the  Constitution,  was  thus  solemnly  and  unanimously  ratified  by  the  same  enlightened 
body  at  its  second  session,  with  the  concurrence  of  the  Father  of  his  country,  who  had 
himself  presided  over  the  deliberations  of  the  Convention  which  framed  the  Constitution. 

I  was  very  much  surprised,  Mr.  President,  to  hear  the  Senator  from  Alabama,  who 
addressed  the  Senate  a  few  days  ago,  (Mr.  Bagby,)  say  that  none  of  the  earlier  Presi¬ 
dents  had  given  their  sanction  to  the  principle  of  protection.  We  have  just  seen  what 
Washington  did.  Mr.  Jefferson,  in  the  high  public  stations  which  he  filled  at  different 
times,  has,  pernaps,  done  as  much  as  any  other  American  statesman  to  recommend  and 
enforce  this  principle.  In  his  report,  as  Secretary  of  State,  in  February,  1791,  on  the 
Fisheries,  he  urged,  with  an  ability  and  comprehensive  and  national  spirit  which  did  him 
the  highest  honor,  the  propriety  and  expediency  of  increasing  the  duties  on  foreign  fish, 
for  the  protection  and  encouragement  of  our  hardy  and  enterprising  eastern  fishermen. 
He  anticipated  many  of  the  arguments  which  have  since  become  the  leading  topics  in 
favor  of  protection ;  and  among  them,  the  policy  of  “  compensating,  as  far  as  practicable, 
the  loss  of  markets  abroad,  by  the  creation  of  markets  at  home.”  This  report,  it  must 
be  borne  in  mind,  preceded  the  celebrated  report  of  General  Hamilton  on  manufactures 
near  a  twelve-month;  and  I  will  here  remark,  that  it  was  not  the  principle  of  protection, 
but  some  of  the  means  by  which  that  distinguished  statesman  proposed  to  carry  it 
into  effect,  to  wit,  bounties,  premiums,  and  the  discretionary  disposal  of  large  funds  by 
a  board  of  public  officers,  together  with  some  very  broad  principles  of  constitutional 
^construction,  which  rendered  the  able  and  masterly  report  of  General  Hamilton  obnox¬ 
ious  at  the  time  to  the  republican  sentiment  of  the  country.  In  place  of  these  direct 
stimulants,  Mr.  Jefferson  proposed  the  indirect  but,  probably,  not  less  efficient  encour¬ 
agement,  of  duties  on  rival  foreign  productions.  This  policy  he  brought  forward,  still 
more  systematically  and  elaborately  than  he  had  done  in  his  report  on  the  Fisheries,  in  a 
report  made  by  him,  as  Secretary  of  State,  in  December,  1793,  on  the  state  of  our  for- 


* 


12 

eign  commerce,  In  which  he  recommended,  that  when  a  nation  imposes  high  duties  on 
our  productions,  or  prohibits  them  altogether,  we  should  do  the  same  by  theirs ;  and, 
unlike  the  modern  school  of  a  cosmopolite  political  economy,  which  insists  that  all 
discriminations  in  the  imposition  of  duties  should  be  mad z  against  the  productions  of 
our  own  industry,  he  recommended  such  a  gradation  of  duties  “  as  should  first  burden 
or  exclude  those  productions  which  they,  (foreign  nations,)  bring  here,  in  competition 
with  our  own  of  the  same  kind .” 

[Mr.  Bagby  here  said,  that  he  had  referred  to  the  messages  to  Congress  of  our  early 
Presidents,  and  particularly  to  those  of  Mr.  Jefferson,  in  which  he  recommended  such 
aid  to  be  given  to  agriculture,  manufactures,  &c.,  as  was  “  within  the  limits  of  the  con¬ 
stitutional  powers”  of  Congress  ;  so  that  nothing  is  gained,  unless  it  be  shown  that  he 
entertained  the  opinion  that  Congress  has  the  constitutional  power  to  lay  duties  for 
protection.' ] 

Mr.  Rives  resumed  :  The  honorable  Senator  read  from  the  first  message  ot  Mr.  Jel- 
ferson  to  Congress,  in  which  the  qualification  cited  by  him  is  contained,  and  by  which 
Mr.  Jefferson  probably  meant  to  exclude  such  modes  of  encouragement  as  had  been 
suggested  by  Gen.  Hamilton,  and  which  he  considered  unconstitutional.  But  that  he 
deemed  duties  for  protection  clearly  constitutional,  is  proved  by  his  having  strongly 
recommended  them  in  both  of  the  above  mentioned  reports,  made  by  him  as  Secretary 
of  State,  and  still  more  explicitly  by  the  language  and  recommendations  of  his  subse¬ 
quent  messages.  In  his  very  next  message  to  Congress,  (in  1802,)  he  recommended, 
the  “  protection  of  the  manufactures  adapted  to  our  circumstances,”  as  one  of  the 
great  land-marks  of  a  sound  national  policy.  In  1806,  when  the  flourishing  state  of 
our  foreign  commerce  had  caused  the  impost  duties  to  yield  a  large  surplus  beyond  the 
existing  demands  of  the  Government,  he  preferred  all  the  dangers  and  embarrassments 
of  that  surplus,  rather  than  by  reducing  the  duties,  to  “  give  that  advantage,”  to  use  his 
own  language,  “  to  foreign,  over  domestic  manufactures;”  and  in  1808,  when  the  ag¬ 
gressions  upon  our  neutral  commerce  by  the  belligerent  powers  of  Europe,  had,  in  a 
great  degree,  driven  it  from  the  ocean,  and  caused  a  large  portion  of  the  capital  and  in¬ 
dustry  of  our  citizens  to  be  applied  to  manufactures,  he  expressly  recommended  “  pro¬ 
tecting  duties ,”  and  even  “  prohibitions ”  as  among  the  proper  means  of  giving  secu¬ 
rity  and  permanency  to  this  new  direction  of  the  national  industry.  This  was  the  lan¬ 
guage  of  his  last  message  as  President  to  Congress,  and  crowns  with  a  most  emphatic 
testimony,  and  by  recommendations  of  unusual  energy,  his  long  and  steady  advocacy  of 
the  interests  of  domestic  industry. 

The  opinions  and  public  acts  of  Mr.  Madison,  through  his  long  and  eminent  career 
of  public  service,  were  not  less  strongly  marked  by  a  zealous  and  unwavering  support 
of  the  same  national  doctrines.  In  1789,  he  heartily  concurred,  as  we  have  seen,  in. 
the  wise  and  beneficent  system  of  policy  established  by  the  first  Congress  under  the 
Constitution,  of  which  it  is  no  disparagement  of  the  just  claims  of  his  many  able  and 
patriotic  associates  to  say,  that  he  was  the  guiding  and  ruling  spirit.  In  1794,  he  was 
the  mover  and  powerful  champion  of  the  celebrated  commercial  propositions,  intended 
to  carry  into  effect  the  principles  and  recommendations  of  Mr.  Jefferson’s  Report  of 
December,  1793.  In  every  one  of  his  messages  to  Congress,  during  the  eight  years  of 
his  presidency,  with  the  exception  only  of  the  three  years  of  the  war  with  England, 
when  the  question  was  of  course  temporarily  suspended,  he  urgently  recommended  the 
manufacturing  industry  of  the  country  to  the  “ protecting  and  fostering  ’care  of  the 
legislature.  In  one  of  his  messages  before  the  war,  he  said,  almost  in  the  words  oi 
Washington,  “  The  national  interest  requires  that  with  respect  to  such  articles  at  least 
as  belong  to  our  defence  and  our  primary  wants,  we  should  not  be  left  in  unnecessary 
dependence  upon  foreign  supplies.”  In  his  very  first  message  after  the  close  of  the 
war,  recurring  to  the  importance,  in  a  national  view,  of  sustaining  the  manufactures 
which  had  sprung  into  existence,  and  attained  an  unparalleled  maturity  throughout  the 
United  States,  during  the  period  of  the  European  wars,  he  says,  in  language  of  emphatic 
earnestness,  “  This  source  of  national  independence  and  wealth,  I  anxiously  recommend 


13 


io  tlac  prompt  and  constant  guardianship  of  Congress.”  And  in  his  succeeding  message? 
of  December,  1815,  in  bringing  the  subject  again  to  the  consideration  of  Congress,  he 
enforced  it  with  so  lucid  a  statement  of  the  just  principles  of  a  sound  and  practical  com¬ 
mercial  legislation,  and  by  so  calm  and  persuasive  an  exhibition  of  great  national  inter¬ 
ests,  that  the  pregnant  paragraph  he  devotes  to  it  will,  in  all  future  time,  be  looked  hack 
to  as  comprehending,  in  the  fewest  words,  the  most  satisfactory  exposition  and  defence 
of  the  true  system  of  American  policy.* 

The  Senator  from  New  Hampshire,  who  spoke  yesterday,  (Mr.  Atherton,)  read  an 
isolated  extract  from  a  speech  of  Mr.  Madison  in  1789,  to  show  that  he  advocated  the 
modern  doctrine  of  unlimited  free  trade.  But  the  honorable  Senator  should  have  read 
other  portions  of  the  same  speech,  and  then  he  would  have  been  better  qualified  to  judge 
of  the  creed  of  Mr.  Madison  from  a  view  of  the  whole  context.  He  would  have  seen, 
that  while  Mr.  Madison  admitted  that  capital  and  labor  are,  in  general,  most  usefully 
employed  when  left  to  the  guidance  of  private  interest,  without  legislative  interference, 
(as,  indeed,  who  does  not  admit  the  general  principle,)  yet  that,  in  the  policy  of  nations, 
there  are  many  just  and  necessary  practical  exceptions,  which  he  proceeds  distinctly  to 
set  forth  and  enforce  in  the  subsequent  and  most  important  part  of  his  speech.  Among 
these  exceptions,  he  particularly  insists  upon  the  duty  of  the  Government  to  sustain  ex¬ 
isting  establishments,  which  ought  not  to  be  allowed  to  perish  for  the  want  of  timely 
protection,  and  which  it  would  be  cruel  to  abandon,  and  leave  the  industry  employed  in 
them  to  seek  new  channels;  for  he  adds,  “  it  is  not  possible  for  the  hand  of  man  to 
shift  from  one  employment  to  another,  without  being  injured  by  the  change.”  Again, 
he  says,  in  the  same  speech,  that  while  there  are  same  manufactures  which  can  advance 
towards  perfection  without  any  adventitious  aid,  there  are  others,  which  demand  the 
“  fostering  hand”  of  the  Government,  and  that  the  prudent  and  wise  selection  of  proper 
objects  for  this  fostering  aid,  is  the  legitimate  province  of  a  sound  legislative  discretion. 
Let  the  whole  doctrine  of  this  speech  of  Mr.  Madison  be  compared  with  the  recommen¬ 
dations  of  his  messages  as  President,  and  particularly  with  the  broad  and  comprehen¬ 
sive  survey  of  the  subject  contained  in  his  leading  message  of  1815,  and  it  will  be  seen 
what  a  beautiful  and  enlightened  consistency  linked  together  the  acts  and  opinions  of 
this  great  American  statesman,  at  these  two  widely  separated  periods  of  his  long  and 
illustrious  career. 

The  principles  of  a  sound  discriminative  commercial  policy  which  I  have  thus  shown 
to  have  been  coeval  with  the  Constitution  itself,  and  to  have  been  cherished  and  main¬ 
tained  by  all  our  great  republican  statesmen  of  an  era  the  most  fruitful  in  lessons  of  po¬ 
litical  wisdom,  are,  at  the  same  time,  sanctioned  by  the  authority  of  the  most  celebrated 
writers  on  the  science  of  political  economy — even  of  those  whose  names  are  often 

*  The  portion  of  the  message  of  1815,  referred  to  above,  is  in  the  following  words,  which,  whether  as 
a  text  of  instruction,  or  a  well  defined  outline  of  a  system  of  public  policy,  cannot  be  too  often  or  too 
carefully  studied. 

“  In  adjusting  the  duties  on  imports  to  the  object  of  revenue,  the  influence  of  the  tariff  on  manufac¬ 
tures,  will  necessarily  present  itself  for  consideration.  However  wise  the  theory  may  be,  which  leaves 
to  the  sagacity  and  interest  of  individuals  the  application  of  their  industry  and  resources,  there  are  in 
this,  as  in  other  cases,  exceptions  to  the  general  rule.  Besides  the  condition  which  the  theory  itself  im¬ 
plies,  of  a  reciprocal  adoption  by  other  nations,  experiences  teaches  that  so  many  circumstances  must 
concur  in  introducing  and  maturing  manufacturing  establishments,  especially  of  the  more  complicated 
kinds,  that  a  country  may  remain  long  without  them,  although  sufficiently  advanced,  and  in  some  re¬ 
spects,  even  peculiarly  fitted  for  carrying  them  on  with  success.  Under  circumstances  giving  a  power¬ 
ful  impulse  to  manufacturing  industry,  it  has  made  among  us  a  progress,  and  exhibited  an  efficiency* 
which  justify  the  belief,  that  with  a  protection  not  more  than  is  due  to  the  enterprising  citizens  whose- 
interests  are  now  at  stake,  it  will  become,  at  an  early  day,  not  only  safe  against  occasional  competitions 
from  abroad,  but  a  source  of  domestic  wealth,  and  even  of  external  commerce.  In  selecting  the  branches 
more  especially  entitled  to  the  public  patronage,  preference  is  obviously  claimed  by  such  as  will  relieve 
the  United  States  from  a  dependence  on  foreign  supplies,  ever  subject  to  casual  failures,  for  articles  ne¬ 
cessary  for  the  public  defence,  or  connected  with  the  primary  wants  of  individuals.  It  will  be  an  addi¬ 
tional  recommendation  of  particular  manufactures,  where  the  materials  for  them  are  extensively  drawn, 
from  agriculture,  and  consequently  impart  and  insure  to  that  great  fund  of  national  prosperity  and  inde¬ 
pendence,  an  encouragement  which  cannot  fail  to  be  rewarded.’* 


I 


14 


invoked  in  support  of  the  doctrines  of  unlimited  free  trade.  Adam  Smith  is  the  oracle 
most  frequently  appealed  to  by  the  disciples  of  the  modern  school  of  free  trade.  And 
yet  Adam  Smith  was  far  from  espousing  the  doctrines  of  free  trade  in  the  unqualified 
sense  in  which  they  are  now  put  forward  by  its  advocates.  He  says  expressly  that  it 
would  be  as  absurd  to  expect  to  see  a  system  of  unlimited  free  trade  adopted  in  Great 
Britain,  as  to  expect  that  an  Oceana  or  Utopia  should  ever  be  established  in  it. 

In  his  great  work  on  the  Wealth  of  Nations,  he  has  himself  laid  down  limitations  of 
the  highest  importance,  and  of  great  practical  extent,  upon  the  general  freedom  of  trade. 
In  the  first  place,  he  maintains  distinctly  that  where  certain  branches  of  industry  or  man¬ 
ufactures  are  essential  to  the  defence  and  security  of  the  country,  it  is  proper  and  wise, 
in  all  such  cases,  to  lay  burthens  upon  foreign,  for  the  encouragement  of  domestic  indus¬ 
try  ;  and  upon  that  principle  he  vindicates  and  upholds  the  policy  of  the  navigation  act 
of  Great  Britain,  which  he  pronounces  to  be  “  the  wisest,  perhaps,  of  all  her  commer¬ 
cial  regulations,”  while  he  shows  it,  at  the  same  time,  to  be  directly  at  war  with  the 
fundamental  canons  of  the  free  trade  school.  Again,  he  says  that  where  foreign  nations 
restrain  by  high  duties  or  prohibitions  the  importaion  of  our  productions  into  their  coun¬ 
tries,  it  is  a  sound  as  well  a  just  policy  to  impose  like  duties  and  restraints  upon  the 
introduction  of  the  produce  of  their  industry  into  ours,  if  there  be  reasonable  ground  to 
believe  that  the  effect  of  such  imposition  may  be  to  lead  ultimately  to  a  relaxation  of  the 
foreign  restrictions  or  prohibitions  of  which  we  complain.  Mr.  Jefferson  seems  to  have 
had  this  principle  of  Smith  in  his  mind  when,  in  his  celebrated  commercial  report  of 
1793,  he  says  :  “  Free  commerce  and  navigation  are  not  to  be  given  in  exchange  for  re¬ 
strictions  and  vexations  ;  nor  are  they  likely  to  produce  a  relaxation  of  them” 

A  third  and  most  important  limitation  laid  down  by  Adam  Smith  upon  the  general 
freedom  of  trade  is  founded  on  the  paternal  regard  which  every  just  and  wise  government 
is  bound  to  show  to.  existing  interests.  He  lays  it  down,  therefore,  distinctly,  that  where 
large  amounts  of  capital  or  a  considerable  portion  of  the  population  of  a  country  have 
been  employed  in  particular  branches  of  industry,  under  the  encouragement  of  former 
legislation,  humanity  as  well  as  justice  enjoins  great  “reserve  and  circumspection”  in 
any  modification  of  the  laws  under  whose  protection  these  interests  have  grown  up. 
How  wide-reaching  as  well  as  important  this  great  principle  of  conservative  legislation 
is  in  its  application  to  the  question  now  before  us,  I  shall  have  occasion  to  show  in  the 
further  progress  of  my  remarks. 

Another  very  important,  and,  in  its  practical  consequences,  most  fruitful  exception  to 
the  general  principle  of  free  trade,  though  not  formally  stated  by  Adam  Smith  among 
the  several  limitations  upon  that  doctrine  which  he  enumerates,  results  directly  from  ex¬ 
plicit  admissions  and  statements  made  by  him.  The  argument  he  urges  in  favor  of  the 
general  policy  of  a  liberal  and  unrestrained  commercial  intercourse  with  foreign  coun¬ 
tries,  is  founded  upon  the  hypothesis  that  the  articles  we  get  from  them  will  come 
cheaper  to  us  than  we  can  make  them  ourselves.  In  such  cases,  he  contends  that  the 
general  effect  of  commercial  restrictions  with  a  view  to  promote  domestic  production  is, 
to  divert  industry  from  a  more  to  a  less  advantageous  employment,  and  to  diminish  the 
exchangable  value  of  the  annual  produce  of  the  country.  But  he  adds  this  important 
qualification  and  admission : 

“  By  means  of  such  regulations,  indeed,  a  particular  manufacture  may  sometimes  be  acquired  sooner 
than  it  could  have  been  otherwise,  and  after  a  certain  time  may  be  made  at  home  as  cheap  or  cheaper 
than  in  the  foreign  country.” — Wealth  of  Nations,  B.  IV,  Chap.  2. 

Here,  then,  is  an  explicit  declaration  by  the  great  oracle  of  the  free  trade  school,  con¬ 
trary  to  what  is  so  constantly  asserted  by  them,  (as  to  the  necessary  and  invariable  effect 
of  protective  duties  to  raise  the  price  of  the  protected  article,)  that  particular  branches  of 
industry  may  sometimes  be  introduced  with  advantage  into  a  country  by  means  of  pro¬ 
tective  duties,  sooner  than  they  otherwise  would  be ;  and  that,  after  a  time,  their  produce 
may  be  afforded  cheaper  at  home  than  in  the  foreign  country.  Wherever  such  is  the 
case,  the  very  foundation,  on  which  the  argument  against  protection  is  built,  fails.  This 


15 


pregnant  admission  of  the  author  of  the  Wealth  of  Nations,  then,  constitutes  another 
and  most  important  head  of  exception  to  the  generality  of  the  free  trade  principle. 
That  there  are  cases  in  which  a  great  reduction  of  price  eventually  takes  place  after  the 
firm  establishment  of  a  manufacture,  which,  but  for  some  legislative  encouragement, 
might  have  remained  for  a  long  time,  if  not  altogether,  unattempted,  the  experience  of 
every  country  seems  to  prove.  A  country  may,  in  the  possession  of  the  raw  material, 
or  other  superior  natural  advantages,  have  a  peculiar  aptitude  for  a  particular  manufac¬ 
ture,  and  yet  from  the  backwardness  of  capital  to  embark  on  new  and  untried  enter- 
prizes,  or  for  the  want  of  previously-acquired  skill,  individuals  will  not  engage  in  it 
without  the  confidence  and  security  derived  from  public  protection ;  but  when  it  has 
been  once  introduced  and  established  under  the  auspices  of  that  protection,  and  its 
practicability  and  advantages  demonstrated,  a  large  number  of  persons  will  be  eager  to 
invest  their  capital  and  industry  in  it,  and  the  domestic  competition  thus  produced, 
leading  to  improved  processes,  and  to  increased  dexterity  and  skill,  ultimately  cheapens 
the  article.  This  effect,  however,  must  be  understood  as  predicated  only  of  such 
branches  ofindustiy  as  a  country,  in  its  natural  advantages  or  otherwise,  possesses  a 
decided  aptitude  for. 

The  remark  just  quoted  of  Adam  Smith  refers  to  the  ultimate  effept  which  may  be 
produced  upon  the  price  of  particular  articles  by  the  operation  of  protective  duties. 
Much  has  been  said  in  the  course  of  this  debate,  Mr.  President,  as  to  the  more  imme¬ 
diate  effect  of  such  duties  upon  prices.  It  has  been  contended  by  some  that  these  duties 
are  in  effect  paid  by  the  producer,  and  do  not  enter  into  the  price  of  the  article.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  honorable  Senator  from  South  Carolina  contends  that  they  invaiiably 
enhance  the  price  of  the  article  by  the  amount  of  the  duty  imposed,  and  are  therefore 
paid  by  the  consumer.  A  little  investigation  will,  I  think,  show  that  there  is  no  invari¬ 
able  rule  on  the  subject,  but  that  the  duty  is  paid  bt  the  producer  or  the  consumer,  or 
divided  between  the  two,  (as  often  happens,)  according  to  the  circumstances  of  each 
particular  case.  The  proposition  that  the  duty  is  invariably  paid  by  the  consumer,  in  a 
corresponding  increase  of  the  price  of  the  article,  evidently  rests  upon  the  assumption  of 
two  principles,  neither  of  which  is  universally  true.  The  first  of  these  principles  is,  that 
the  price  of  an  article  always  corresponds  with  the  cost  of  production ,  or  is  barely  suffi¬ 
cient  to  repay  the  actual  outlay  (including  ordinary  profit)  incurred  in  its  fabrication  and 
preparation  for  market.  If  this  were  so,  then  it  is  clear  that  the  producer  could  not  pay 
the  duty,  for  its  payment  would  force  him  to  quit  his  business.  But  it  is  not  true  that  the 
price  of  an  article  always  corresponds  with  the  cost  of  production.  On  the  contrary,  the 
cost  of  production  is,  as  Adam  Smith  says,  only  (*  the  central  point  to  which  the  market 
price  of  commodities  is  continually  gravitating.”  But  various  circumstances  conspire,  in 
many  commodities,  as  he  satisfactorily  shows,  to  keep  up  the  market  price  for  a  long 
time,  (even  for  centuries,  in  some  particular  commodities,)  much  above  the  cost  of  pro¬ 
duction.  In  all  such  cases,  the  producer  may  afford  to  pay  the  duty,  (if  it  should  be 
necessary  to  do  so  in  order  to  effect  a  ready  sale  of  his  goods,)  without  being  forced  to 
quit  his  business. 

The  other  principle  assumed  in  the  proposition,  that  the  consumer  always  pays  the 
duty,  is  that  there  is  an  uniform  level  of  profits  in  the  various  employments  of  capital 
and  industry,  and  therefore  if  the  duty  imposed  upon  a  particular  commodity  were  paid 
by  the  producer  or  dealer  in  the  article,  it  would  reduce  his  profits  below  the  general 
level,  and  he  would  transfer  his  capital  to  some  other  employment,  yielding  him  the 
general  rate  of  profit.*  But,  in  point  of  fact,  there  is  no  such  uniform  level  of  profits 
in  the  different  employments  of  capital.  There  is,  as  Adam  Smith  says,  a  constant 
tendency  to  equality,  (rather  than  an  actual  equality,)  in  the  aggregate  advantages  and 
disadvantages  of  the  various  employments  of  stock  and  labor  in  the  same  country. 
But  that  there  exist,  in  every  country,  very  different  rates  of  pecuniary  profit,  in  differ- 

*  This  is  the  reasoning  of  Ricardo :  but  it  is  ably  controverted  by  Say,  both  in  his  Traite  and  hie 
Cours  d’economie  politique,  particular!)'  the  latter. 


I 


16 


<ent  trades  and  occupations,  without  occasioning  any  transference  of  capital  or  labor 
'from  one  to  another,  is  a  familiar  fact,  about  which  there  can  be  no  controversy.  The 
honorable  Senator  from  South  Carolina  (Mr.  McDuffie)  himself,  has  stated  the  various 
rates  of  profit  in  different  occupations  in  this  country,  as  ranging  from  5  per  cent.,  which 
he  considers  the  average  rate  of  profit  in  farming  and  planting  industry,  to  12,  20,  35 
and  even  40  per  cent.,  which  he  mentions  as  different  gradations  of  manufacturing  pro¬ 
fit.  The  rates  of  profit,  then,  differing  so  widely  in  point  of  fact,  in  different  depart¬ 
ments  of  industry,  notwithstanding  the  general  tendency  to  approximation,  the  duties 
upon  particular  articles  in  the  more  profitable  branches  of  trade,  may  often  be  paid, 
wholly  or  in  part,  by  the  producer  or  the  dealer  in  those  branches,  without  occasioning 
any  sensible  transference  of  capital  from  one  employment  to  another. 

Whether  the  duty,  then,  falls  upon  the  consumer  or  the  producer,  or  partly  upon  one 
and  partly  upon  the  other,  will  depend,  in  each  individual  case,  upon  the  previous  ele¬ 
vation  of  the  price  of  the  article  and  the  relative  profitableness  of  the  particular  branch 
of  industry  or  manufacture,  combined  with  the  actual  proportion  between  demand  and 
supply  in  the  market  at  the  time.  Ttrre  is  so  practical  and  common  sense  a  view  of 
this  whole  subject,  in  a  work  of  high  authority,  to  which  we  never  resort  for  instruction 
in  vain,  that  I  am  tempted  to  read  it  to  the  Senate,  the  more  especially  as  my  honorable 
friend  from  New  Hampshire  (Mr.  Woodbury)  found  it  convenient,  in  quoting  from  the 
same  paper,  to  stop  in  the  middle  of  a  sentence,  where  I  will  now  take  up  and  continue 
the  quotation.  The  honorable  Senator  read  a  part  of  a  paragraph  from  the  35th  No.  of 
the  Federalist,  in  which  the  writer,  speaking  of  the  evil  effects  of  exorbitant  duties,  re¬ 
presents  them  as  tending  to  produce  smuggling,  to  render  other  classes  tributary  to 
manufactures,  to  force  industry  out  of  its  natural  channels,  and  finally,  he  adds,  “  and,  in 
the  last  place,  they  oppress  the  merchant” — Here ,  in  the  verv  middle  of  the  sentence, 
the  honorable  Senator  came  to  a  full  stop,  adding  <fcc.  &c.  But  the  writer  proceeds — 
they  oppress  the  merchant,  44  who  is  often  obliged  to  pay  them  himself,  without  any  re¬ 
tribution  from  the  consumer .  When  the  demand  is  equal  to  the  quantity  of  goods  at 
market,  the  consumer  generally  pays  the  duty ;  but  when  the  markets  happen  to  be 
overstocked,  a  great  proportion  falls  upon  the  merchant,  and  sometimes  not  only  ex¬ 
hausts  his  profits,  but  breaks  in  upon  his  capital.  I  am  apt  to  think  that  a  division  of 
the  duty  between  the  seller  and  the  buyer  more  often  happens  than  is  commonly  im¬ 
agined.  It  is  not  always  possible  to  raise  the  price  of  a  commodity,  in  exact  proportion 
to  every  additional  imposition  laid  upon  it.  The  merchant,  especially  in  a  country  of 
small  commercial  capital,  is  often  under  a  necessity  of  keeping  prices  down,  in  order 
to  a  more  expeditious  sale.”  What  the  writer  here  says  of  the  merchant,  is  applicable 
Tather  to  the  producer,  the  real  and  original  seller  of  the  commodity,  and  serves  at  least 
to  show  that  the  burthen  of  the  duty  does  not  exclusively  fall  upon  the  consumer ,  as  is 
now  contended. 

While  it  is  thus  established  by  the  authority  of  the  ablest  theoretical  writers  on  poli¬ 
tical  economy,  as  well  as  by  the  wisdom  of  legislators  and  the  practice  of  nations,  that 
in  many  cases,  duties  may  and  ought  to  be  imposed  with  a  view  to  the  encouragement 
and  protection  of  domestic  industry  as  well  as  revenue,  a  sound  policy  undoubtedly  de¬ 
mands  a  sober  moderation  in  the  imposition  of  these  duties.  In  this,  as  in  other  cases, 
Involving  the  wise  direction  of  human  policy  and  conduct,  there  is  a  middle  line  to  be 
observed,  on  either  side  of  which  is  error,  and  to  go  beyond,  or  fall  short  of  it,  is  equally 
•attended  with  evil  consequences  and  injustice  ; — 

“  Est  modus  in  rebus;  sunt  certi  denique  fines, 

Q,uos  ultra  citraque  nequit  consistere  rectum.” 

There  may  be  an  ultraism  of  restriction,  as  well  as  a  citra-ism,  (if  I  may  be  allowed 
to  coin  a  word  from  my  quotation,)  of  free-trade.  The  aim  of  a  wise  policy  should  be 
to  avoid  either  extreme,  and  to  adjust  the  duties  on  foreign  imports  so  as  not  to  give  a 
monopoly  either  to  the  domestic  producer,  or  to  the  importer.  And  here  I  will  remark, 
Mr.  President,  that  a  practical  monopoly  may  result  from  the  extravagance  of  free  trade, 


17 


as  well  as  from  the  violence  of  prohibition,  for  if  we  expose  the  nascent  efforts  of  the 
industry  and  genius  of  our  own  countrymen  to  be  overwhelmed  in  an  unequal  struggle 
with  the  establishments  of  the  old  world,  we  thereby  give,  as  effectually,  a  monopoly 
to  the  foreign  manufacturer,  as  by  the  prohibitory  system  it  would  be  given  to  the  do¬ 
mestic  producer.  A  sound  policy  forbids  both.  Duties  upon  importation  should  be  so 
regulated  as  not  to  exclude  the  foreign  commodity,  but  to  admit  it  on  terms  which  will 
place  the  domestic  producer  and  the  importer  on  a  footing  of  fair  and  equal  competition. 
Competition  is  the  true  interest  of  the  manufacturer,  as  well  as  the  consumer.  It  is  the 
nurse  of  skill  and  excellence— the  spur  to  industry,  economy  and  improvement— giving 
steadiness  of  prices,  and  furnishing  the  best  security  against  revulsions,  which  some- 
times  overwhelm  in  utter  ruin  the  pampered  trades  which  rely  too  much  on  legislative 
protection.  A  judicious  and  rational  system  of  protection  seeks  to  assist,  not  to  force, 
nature.  Where  a  country  possesses  aptitudes  and  facilities  for  particular  branches  of 
industry,  essential  to  the  national  prosperity  or  independence,  such  a  system  draws 
them  forth  and  sustains  them  by  suitable  encouragements,  but  never  bolsters  up  by  the 
mere  force  of  legislation— by  premiums,  bounties,  or  other  artificial  stimulants— un¬ 
dertakings  for  which  nature  has  given  no  adequate  capacity  or  advantage. 

Much  error  and  prejudice,  in  my  opinion,  Mr.  President,  have  arisen  among  the  spec¬ 
ulative  minds  of  our  country,  from  confounding  the  rational  and  discriminative  commer¬ 
cial  policy  which  I  have  endeavored  to  describe,  with  the  antiquated  barbarism  and  ab¬ 
surdities  of  the  so-called  mercantile  system,  against  which  the  writings  of  Adam  bmith 
and  the  political  philosophers  of  his  school,  have  been  so  ably  and  so  successfully  hi 
rected.  But  no  two  things,  in  my  humble  judgment,  can  be  more  distinct,  1  he  ge 
nius  of  the  mercantile  system  was  artificial  regulation,  arbitrary  restraints ,  protntn 
tion,  monopoly,  in  all  the  pursuits  of  industry  and  commerce.  It  had  its  great  imper 
sonation  in  the  celebrated  minister  of  Louis  XIV,  Colbert,  whom  Adam  Smith  graphi 
cally  describes  as  “  a  laborious  and  plodding  man  of  business,’  who  had  been  accus 
tomed  to  regulate,  with  the  most  exact  order,  the  various  administrative  bureaus  under 
his  direction,  and  who  “  endeavored  to  regulate  the  industry  and  commerce  of  a  great 
country  upon  the  same  model  as  the  departments  of  a  public  office.  Carrying  this 
spirit  of  artificial  regulation  and  restraint  into  the  commercial  relations  of  France,  he 
virtually  prohibited  by  his  tariff  of  1667,  many  of  the  most  important  foreign  manufac¬ 
tures  which  France  had  been  in  the  habit  of  importing.  In  re taliation  of  this  policy, 
England,  a  few  years  after,  formally  and  absolutely  prohibited  the  importation  ol 
French  goods,  and  at  a  later  period,  in  the  reign  of  William  III,  renewed  t he  prohibi¬ 
tion,  and  declared,  by  act  of  parliament,  the  trade  with  France  to  be  a  nuisance .  bi- 
nally,  when  this  formal  prohibition  was  withdrawn,  a  scale  of  duties  was  substituted 
equivalent  to  prohibition—' 75  per  cent,  being  the  lowest  rate  of  duty  to  which  the 
greatest  part  of  French  goods  were  subjected.  Here  was  an  exemplification  on  both 
sides,  of  that  mercantile  system,  against  which  the  reasonings  of  Adam  Smith  were  so 
powerfully  directed.  If  gentlemen  will  take  the  trouble  to  recur  to  his  remarks  on  the 
principles  of  that  system,  which  it  was  the  chief  object  of  his  labors  to  expose  and 
overthrow,  they  will  find  he  constantly  describes  it  as  having  for  its  object  a  mono¬ 
poly”  of  the  home  market,  and  for  its  means  “ prohibition  of  rival  foreign  commod- 

1 U  This  system  survived,  in  many  of  its  arbitrary  and  vexatious  restrictions,  down  to  a 
comparatively  recent  period  in  England.  Some  curious  and  instructive  evidences  of 
it  are  mentioned  by  Mr.  Huskisson.  In  his  speech  on  commercial  reform,  in  1825,  he 
says,  “  within  my  own  time,  regulating  acts,  dealing  with  every  minute  process  of  the 
woollen  manufacture,  have  been  repealed  by  the  score;”  and  in  his  great  speech  on  the 
state  of  the  country,  in  1830,  he  says,  “  six  or  seven  hundred  statutes,  passed  ior ^im¬ 
proving  the  commerce  and  industry  of  the  country,  by  a  system  of  protection,  prohibi¬ 
tion,  restriction ,  and  interference ,  have  been  repealed.”  It  was  this  antiquated,  and 
now  exploded  system,  against  which  the  writings  of  political  philosophers,  and  the  et- 
forts  of  enlightened  legislators  have  been  directed,  and  justly  and  properly  directed,  dur- 


18 


En^HAt  W  centn7-  ,  Mr'  Huskisson,  the  great  commercial  reformer  of 
Ucfio^’  1^  f  ‘eiW,Uf'  33  *e  chamP10n  °f  free  trade,  was  not  the  opponent  of  pro- 
ducintr'the  ,,)WaS  }>rohlln^on  he  opposed,  and  to  a  great  extent,  overthrew.  In  intro- 
aucing  the  changes  which  he  proposed  and  carried  in  the  tariff  of  England,  in  1825 

eredX»ro^V/deC  arednhl‘  the.aI‘eratlons  he  proposed  were  in  duties  which  he  consid- 
wordf ..  b  tcTy ’  T d  h?  ?,^ed  suPP°rl  for  hi®  propositions,  only  (to  use  his  own 
iJw,  i  a\they  sha11  be  f°und  not  inconsistent  with  the  protection  of  our  own 

r  tJj  and  subsequently,  in  1830,  he  energetically  repudiated  the  cognomen  of 

which  ht  hi  h  Unn'f“inS  a"d  absurd”  in  its  application  to  the  system  of  measures 
which  he  had  brought,  forward  and  triumphantly  carried  through.  Moderate,  judicious, 

Pr°tectl°n’  >n  connexion  with  revenue,  and  as  contra-distinguished  from 
P/°Z,Z  l0n’  13  that  safe  and  Poetical  line  of  policy,  to  which  the  public  opinion  of  this 
untry  is  now  rallying  with  an  extraordinary  and  auspicious  unanimity.  There  have 
een  periods  in  our  history  when  there  have  been  strong  tendencies  manifested,  even  to 
a  prohibitory  policy  The  legislation  of  1828  is  now,  by  general  consent,  considered 

Npwv'T  a/Lreraw  that  Sx0rt*  But  that  day  is  past;  and  the  honorable  Senator  from 
f  *ork’  (Mr<  Wright,)  who  addressed  the  Senate  some  days  ago,  might,  therefore, 
;aIf.^ed  himself  the  trouble  of  the  able  and  elaborate  argument  he  delivered  against 
prouitntwn.  Who  proposes  or  advocates  prohibition  now  ?  Certainly  not  m\  honor¬ 
able  friend  from  Massachusetts,  (Mr.  Bates,)  nor  my  other  honorable  friend,  the  Sen- 
lftI‘/rRmfVeurmEnt’  (Mr*  Phelps’)  among  the  most  zealous  champions  of  the  tariff  of 
i  , 0  haJe  explicitly  declared  that  they  ask  no  more  protection  to  the  agri¬ 
cultural  and  manufacturing  industry  of  their  constituents  than  will  be  yielded  by  such  a 
revenue  tariff,  with  fair  and  proper  discriminations ,  as  may  be  necessary  for  the  wise 
W  ,ec<?n°mical  administration  and  support  of  the  Government.  The  same  sentiment 
Has  had  the  sanction  and  concurrence  of  other  honorable  Senators  from  the  same  quar- 
ter  ol  the  Union,  who  have  borne  prominent  and  distinguished  parts  in  this  debate. 

Ihis  brings  me,  Mr.  President,  to  some  observations  on  the  act  of  1842;  and  first 
to  correct  a  very  extraordinary  misconception  as  to  the  origin  of  that  act.  It  has  been 
very  generally  treated  by  its  adversaries,  in  the  discussions  which  have  recently  taken 
place,  as  a  measure  originating  in  the  policy  of  protection.  But  such  is  not  the  fact. 

pubj.lc  aiad  well-known  history  of  the  measure,  proves  that  its  object  was  revenue, 
though,  doubtless,  in  the  adjustment  of  its  details,  regard  was  paid  to  the  interests  of 
domestic  industry.  For  years,  the  current  expenditures  of  the  Government  had  been 
permitted  to  exceed  its  current  revenue ;  and  when  the  accumulation  of  former  sur¬ 
pluses  with  which  the  last  administration  commenced  its  career,  was  exhausted,  and 
the  current  revenue  fell  habitually  short  of  the  current  expenditure,  instead  of  resorting 
irect  and  proper  means  of  supplying  the  deficiency,  that  administration  preferred 
relying  upon  the  hollow  and  delusive  expedient  of  treasury  notes.  They  thus  passed 
the  Urovernment  into  the  hands  of  their  successors  with  a  large  accumulation  of  debt 
and  with  an  established  deficiency  in  the  current  resources  of  the  treasury  to  meet  the 
current  demands  upon  it.  During  the  last  year  of  that  administration  (1840)  the  cur- 
*  1  neJ* revenue  of  the  Government  was  between  thirteen  and  fourteen  millions  of  dol- 
ars,  while  its  current  expenditure  was  between  twenty-two  and  twenty-three  millions 
1  o  till  up  so  wide  a  gap  between  the  income  and  expenses  of  the  Government,  as  well 
as  to  provide  for  the  payment  of  the  public  debt,  those  who  succeeded  to  the  management 
°l  a  affairs’ deemed  lt:  incumbent  upon  them,  in  the  high  and  honorable  discharge 
ot  their  duty  to  the  country,  to  raise  additional  revenue,  by  a  fair  and  open  resort  to  the 
necessary  means  of  doing  it.  For  this  purpose,  a  law  was  passed,  as  Senators  well  re¬ 
collect,  during  the  called  session  of  1841,  laying  duties  upon  various  articles  of  foreign 
import,  which  had  been  previously  free.  The  revenue,  however,  even  with  the  aid  of 
that  act,  still  continuing  entirely  inadequate  to  meet  the  demands  upon  the  Government 
lor  its  current  service  and  the  discharge  of  the  public  debt  together,  it  became  absolutely 
necessary  to  lay  further  duties  for  the  support  of  the  Government.  In  this  necessity, 
the  act  ol  1842  had  its  origin ;  and  if  gentlemen  will  take  the  trouble  to  recollect  a  little 


19 


h  the  contemporary  history  of  the  measure,  and  especially  to  look  at  the  able  ami  lucid 
“  speech  of  the  honorable  gentleman,  then  chairman  of  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means 
of  the  other  House,  (Mr.  Fillmore,)  whose  duty  it  was  to  introduce  and  explain  the 
act,  they  will  see  that  its  open,  avowed,  patent  and  manifest  object  was  revenue,  ur¬ 
gently  called  for  to  sustain  the  faith  of  the  nation,  and  to  meet  the  wants  of  the  public 
service  Whatever  may  be  the  incidental  operation  of  the  act  upon  certain  interests  of 
domestic  industry,  and  however  its  details  may  have  been  adjusted  with  a  view  to- that 
operation,  it  is  still  undoubtedly  true  that  the  primary  and  leading  object  of  the  law  was 

While  such  was  the  object  of  the  act,  my  apprehension  at  the  time,  from  the  high 
rate  of  some  of  the  duties,  was  that  its  practical  effect  would  be  to  discourage  importa¬ 
tions  to  such  a  degree  as  to  reduce,  instead  of  augmenting,  the  revenue.  This  opinion 
was  founded  upon  well  authenticated  data,  derived  from  the  financial  experience  of  Eu¬ 
ropean  Governments,  in  which  it  had  been  often  seen  that  an  increase  of  duties,  by  di¬ 
minishing  consumption,  lessened  instead  of  increasing  revenue.  The  result,  however, 
has  shown  that  the  experience  of  Europe  cannot  be  safely  relied  on  as  furnishing  con¬ 
clusions  applicable  to  the  financial  condition  and  resources  of  America.  The  means  of 
consumption  possessed  by  the  industrious  classes,  who  constitute  the  great  mass  of 
consumers  every  where,  being  far  more  limited,  from  the  stinted  reward  of  labor,  in  Eu¬ 
rope  than  in  this  country,  any  increase  of  duty,  which  occasions  a  sensible  enhancement 
of  price,  necessarily  diminishes  consumption  there,  and  is  consequently  often  followed 
by  a  diminution,  instead  of  an  increase,  of  revenue.  But,  in  the  United  States,  the  more 
liberal  reward  of  labor  and  general  prosperity  of  the  industrious  classes,  giving  a  much 
greater  ability  to  consume,  an  increase  of  duty,  even  .when  attended  with  a  corresponding 
increase  of  price,  seems  to  have  but  little  effect,  comparatively,  upon  actual  consumption 
here.  Whatever  be  the  true  solution  of  the  phenomenon,  it  must  be  admitted  that  the 
operation  of  the  act  of  1842,  upon  the  foreign  commerce  and  revenue  of  the  country,  (so 
far,)  has  not  conformed  to  the  conclusions  which  seemed  fairly  deducible  from  the 
financial  experience  of  Europe.  The  foreign  commerce  of  the  country,  notwithstand¬ 
ing  the  temporary  derangement  manifested  for  the  first  six  months  after  the  passage  of 
the  law,  and  which  is  satisfactorily  accounted  for  by  the  uncertainty  which  had  pre¬ 
vailed  in  regard  to  the  final  action  of  Congress  upon  the  subject,  is  now  in  a  more  vigor¬ 
ous  and  flourishing  state  than  it  has  been  for  years  ;  and  the  revenue  from  customs,  in¬ 
stead  of  falling  off,  has  increased  from  13  to  17  millions  in  the  first  year  of  the  opera¬ 
tion  of  the  act,  and  during  the  present  year,  according  to  statements  communicated  by 
the  Treasury  Department,  will  reach  to  20  or  perhaps  25  millions. 

I  have  now  before  me  a  comparative  statement  of  the  foreign  commerce  and  revenue 
receipts  of  the  port  of  Boston  for  the  first  quarter  of  1843,  and  the  corresponding  quar¬ 
ter  of  1844,  which  exhibits,  in  so  striking  a  point  of  view,  the  progressive  operation  of 
the  act  of  1842,  in  both  of  these  respects,  that  I  cannot  forbear  to  give  the  results  of  it  to 
the  Senate.  During  the  first  quarter  of  1843,  when  the  effect  of  the  act  of  1842  had 
hardly  begun  to  be  felt,  the  number  of  ships  from  foreign  ports  arrived  at  Boston,  was 
138.  During  the  first  quarter  of  the  present  year,  the  number  of  foreign  arrivals  there 
was  222,  being  an  increase,  in  a  single  quarter,  of  84.  During  the  first  quarter  of  1843, 
the  revenue  received  from  customs  at  Boston  was  $589,740  ;  the  like  revenue  received 
there  during  the  first  quarter  of  the  present  year  was  $1,310,000,  exhibiting  an  increase  of 
revenue,  for  a  single  quarter,  of  $720,259.  From  another  statement  1  have  in  my  posses¬ 
sion,  it  appears  that  the  revenue  from  customs,  received  at  the  port  of  New  York  alone, 
during  the  first  quarter  of  the  present  year,  was  $5,731,546,  exceeding  the  estimates  in 
the  annual  Treasury  report  of  the  gross  receipts  from  all  the  custom-houses  in  the 
Union  during  the, first  quarter  of  the  year.  So  signal  and  decisive  have  been  the  actual 
results  thus  far  of  the  operation  of  the  act  of  1842  upon  the  commerce  and  revenue  of 
the  country,  contrasted  with  the  apparently  well-founded  conclusions  derived  from  the 
experience  of  other  countries,  under  the  influence  of  which  my  vote  was  recorded  against 
its  passage.  It  is  the  remark  of  a  celebrated  and  profound  philosophical  writer,* 

*  Hunw. 


I 


20 


ihat  “  it  frequently  happens,  in  political  institutions,  that  the  consequences  of  things  are 
diametrically  opposite  to  what  we  should  expect  on  the  first  appearance.”  In  nothing' 
is  this  so  much  the  case,  and  reasonings  a  priori  as  little  to  be  relied  on,  or  so  liable  to  bo 
contradicted  by  results,  as  in  the  complex  problems  of  trade  and  finance;  and  I  have 
lived  much  too  long,  Mr.  President,  not  to  be  sensible  of  the  fallability  of  human  judg¬ 
ment,  and  to  be  prepared,  at  all  times,  to  surrender  opinions  to  the  demonstrations  of  ex¬ 
perience. 

While  such  has  been  the  operation  of  the  act  of  1842  upon  the  revenue  and  foreign  com¬ 
merce  of  the  nation,  its  effects  upon  other  connected  interests  have  been  alike  propitious 
and  remarkable.  The  credit  of  the  Government,  the  entire  prostration  of  which,  before 
the  passage  of  the  law,  had  been  a  source  of  deep  humiliation  to  every  American  citi¬ 
zen,  has  suddenly  sprung  up,  as  if  touched  by  the  wand  of  the  enchanter,  and  is  again 
the  object  of  universal  confidence  at  home  and  abroad.  Private  and  individual  credit 
have  risen  with  it ;  and  the  slumbering  spirit  of  American  enterprise  has  once  more 
waked  up,  as  a  giant  from  his  sleep.  Amid  the  general  activity  and  animation  in  all  the 
pursuits  of  the  national  industry,  no  interest  is  oppressed  by  the  operation  of  the  law ; 
for  the  very  existence  of  the  controversy,  which  has  been  maintained  with  equal  zeal 
and  confidence  on  both  sides,  in  regard  to  prices ,  proves  that  there  cannot  have  been 
any  material  change  in  that  respect,  one  way  or  the  other.  If  some  articles  have  risen 
in  price,  others  have  fallen  ;  and  in  the  general  result,  the  interests  of  the  great  body  of 
consumers  remain  unaffected. 

In  this  state  of  things,  and  when  it  is  admitted,  on  all  hands,  that  all  the  revenue 
which  the  tariff  established  by  the  act  of  1842  is  capable  of  yielding,  is  absolutely  ne¬ 
cessary,  at  present,  either  for  the  current  service  of  the  Government,  or  for  the  discharge 
of  the  public  engagements,  shall  we  wantonly  interpose  and  arrest  it  in  the  full  tide  of  its 
success,  simply  because  it  does  not  conform  to  the  theories  of  some  gentlemen  in  regard 
to  the  true  standard  of  revenue  duties,  or  that  we  may  afford  them  the  gratification  of  a 
party  triumph  in  the  overthrow  of  a  law  against  which  they  have  sworn  a  solemn  vow 
of  vengeance  upon  the  altar  of  their  party  allegiance  ?  For  one,  I  cannot  consent  to  do  it. 
The  great  public  interests  involved  are  vastly  too  important  to  be  made  the  sport  of 
speculative  theories  or  of  legislative  caprice.  If  we  look  alone  to  the  interests,  more  im¬ 
mediately  concerned,  which  have  grown  up  to  their  present  magnitude  under  the  foster¬ 
ing  influence  of  that  system  of  laws  of  which  the  act  of  1842  forms  a  part,  we  should 
survey  the  ground  carefully  when  we  propose  a  fundamental  alteration  in  their  provisions. 
The  amount  of  capital  invested  in  the  various  branches  of  manufacturing  industry  in  the 
United  States,  including  mining  and  the  mechanic  arts,  does  not,  at  this  moment,  proba¬ 
bly,  fall  short  of  four  hundred  millions  of  dollars  ;  and  the  number  of  persons  connected 
with  these  pursuits,  if  we  add  to  the  operatives  themselves  their  families  and  their  de¬ 
pendants,  has  been  computed  to  amount  to  about  four  millions  of  the  free  population  of 
America  Where  so  large  an  amount  of  the  national  capital  is  involved,  and  the  liveli¬ 
hood  of  so  numerous  and  interesting  a  portion  of  the  population  of  the  country  may  be 
compromised,  it  surely  becomes  us,  as  guardians  of  the  national  weal,  looking  to  the 
interest  of  every  part  as  redounding  to,  and  indissolubly  connected  with,  the  strength 
and  prosperity  of  the  whole,  to  proceed  with  caution  by  the  clear  lights  of  experience, 
and  not  to  surrender  ourselves  blindly  to  preconceived  and  untested  theories.  In  a 
voyage  where  the  venture  is  so  great,  we  should  heave  the  lead  every  step  of  our  pro¬ 
gress.  Let  experience  decide  the  nature  and  extent  of  changes  in  the  law',  as  changes 
shall  from  time  to  time  be  shown  to  be  necessary  and  expedient,  and  then  we  may  have 
the  reasonable  hope  of  correcting  existing  evils,  without  the  danger  of  introducing  new 
and  still  greater  ones. 

There  are  those,  I  fear,  Mr.  President,  who,  in  the  heats  engendered  in  our  political 
controversies,  have  come  to  regard  this  great  branch  of  the  national  industry  and  wealth 
with  aversion  rather  than  favor.  But  a  little  reflection  will  satisfy  them  that  manufac¬ 
tures,  with  the  extraordinary  improvements  of  art  introduced  by  the  inventive  genius  of 
the  age,  form  a  chief  and  most  important  element  in  the  strength  and  power  of  modem 
States.  The  effects  of  labor-saving  machinery  in  this  department  of  human  industry, 


21 


I  in  facilitating,  cheapening,  and  augmenting  production,  have,  within  the  last  half  century, 
made  an  almost  magical  addition  to  the  riches  and  financial  resources  of  the  nations 
most  largely  engaged  in  manufactures.  What  but  the  wonderful  development  of  this 
new  source  of  wealth  and  power  in  England,  during  that  eventful  period,  enabled  her  to 
sustain,  not  only  without  exhaustion,  but  with  undiminished  prosperity,  especially  nr 
her  (treat  agricultural  interest,  the  extraordinary  financial  efforts  called  for  in  her  mighty 
simple  with  the  colossal  power  of  Europe,  consolidated  and  directed  by  the  ascendant 
genfus  and  energy  of  Napoleon  ?  One  of  the  most  enlightened  of  her  statistical  writers,, 
in  a  verv  instructive  work  published  a  few  years  since,  says,  in  reference  to  this  subject— 

“  It  is  to  the  spinning  jenny  and  the  steam  engine  that  we  must  look  as  the  true  mov¬ 
ing  powers  of  our  fleets  and  armies,  and  as  the  chief  support,  also,  of  a  long  continued 

agricultural  prosperity.”*  c  .  , 

We  have  a  striking  illustration  of  the  creative  powers  of  the  same  species  of  md^stry*' 
in  addin*  to  the  mass  of  national  wealth,  in  the  history  of  our  own  country  since  18,50.. 
In  that  year,  according  to  the  census  returns,  the  gross  annual  amount  of  manufactures- 
produced  in  the  United  States  was  $36,115,000.  In  1840,  their  nett  annual  amount, 
(after  deducting  one-third  of  the  gross  amount  on  account  of  the. value  of  raw  materials,}, 
was  $239,836,224 ;  thus  exhibiting  an  increase  of  more  than  six  hundred  per  cent,  m 
twenty  years,  without  making  any  allowance  for  the  difference  between  gross  and  nett 
value.  ’An  able  and  learned  writer  of  my  own  State,  (Professor  Tucker,)  who  has  laid 
the  whole  country,  and  especially  its  legislators  and  public  men,  under  deep  obligation 
by  his  recent  valuable  work  on  its  statistical  history,  has  deduced,  from  a  comparison 
of  the  data  furnished  by  our  census  returns,  the  decennial  rate  of  increase  of  the  nationai 
wealth  in  each  of  the  great  branches  of  national  industry  in  the  United  States.  I  e- 
shows  the  average  decennial  increase  of  wealth  in  those  various  branches,  or  tie  as 
fifty  years,  to  have  been  about  fifty  per  cent.,  while  the  increase  m  manufactures  for 
each  term  of  ten  years,  since  1820,  has  been  at  the  extraordinary  rate  of  two  hundred 
and  eighty-four  per  cent.,  according  to  the  data  which  he  considers  safest  for  a  com¬ 
parative  estimate.  There  is  one  criterion,  susceptible  of  precise  ascertainment,  which 
seems  fully  to  sustain  this  estimate,  surprising  as  it  is  in  its  results.  1 l  refer :  to  1 the 
ports  of  domestic  manufactures,  which  in  1820  were  $2,342*000 ;  in  1840,  $12,868,840  , 
and  in  1841,  $13,523,071 ;  being  an  increase  of  more  than  sixfold  m  twenty-one  years,, 
while  no  other  class  of  domestic  exports  has  even  doubled  in  the  same  period. 

Every  person,  Mr.  President,  must  perceive,  at  once,  the  immense  benefits  resulting 
from  this  rapid  growth  of  the  manufacturing  wealth  and  industry  of  the  country  to  alt 
the  other  great  branches  of  American  enterprise— to  our  commerce,  to  our  navigation, 
to  our  agriculture.  We  have  just  seen,  sir,  how  strikingly  it  has  already  fulfilled  he- 
anticipation  expressed  by  Mr.  Madison  in  his  memorable  message  of  December,  1815, 
that  it  would  “become,  at  an  early  day,  not  only  a  source  of  domestic  wealth,  but  ol 
external  commerce .”  Its  contributions  to  the  foreign  commerce  of  the  country  wi 
become  daily  greater  and  greater,  as  the  rapid  improvement  in  the  skill  of  our  artizans,. 
and  the  superiority  of  their  fabrics,  become  more  and  more  known.  But ^it  is  in  furnish¬ 
ing  exchanges  for  the  vast  interior  commerce  of  our  own  country,  through  the  multiplied 
channels  of  intercourse  along  our  lakes,  our  rivers,  our  canals,  bur  railroads  and  our  sea- 
coast,  that  its  great  importance  to  the  commercial  and  navigating  interests  of  the  country 
is  chiefly  seen  and  felt.  I  have  been  so  much  struck  with  a  statement  on  this  subject, 
contained  in  a  recent  public  letter  of  an  able  and  distinguished  gentleman,  (Mr.  N  athan 
Appleton  of  Boston,)  with  whom  I  have  had  the  honor  of  being  associated  in  the  pub- 
-  lie  service  here,  and  whose  high  personal  character  and  accurate  practical  information 
are  known  to  all,  that  I  take  the  liberty  to  read  it  to  the  Senate.  “  The  trade,  says- 
Mr.  Appleton,  “between  Boston  and  New  Orleans,  employs  a  greater  amount  of  ton¬ 
nage  than  that  between  New  York  and  Liverpool  ever  did.  Upwards  of  fifty  square 
rigged  vessels  of  the  larger  class,  have  arrived  at  this  port  during  the  sixty  days  of  Feb¬ 
ruary  and  March — one  half  of  their  cargoes,  at  least,  consisting  of  the  produce  ot  the- 

*  Porter’s  progress  of  the  nation,  vol.  I,  p.  188. 

I 


22 


valley  of  the  Ohio.  This  trade  is  the  result  of  the  protective  system.  How  could  we  # 
take  their  beef,  pork,  flour,  lard  and  wool,  if  they  did  not  take  our  calicoes,  cottons, 
cabinet  wares,  shoes  and  other  notions?”  / 

Let  us  glance,  for  a  moment,  at  the  advantages  flowing  from  this  great  development 
of  the  manufacturing  industry  of  the  country  to  the  most  important  of  our  interests— 
the  nursing  mother  of  all  the  rest — our  agriculture.  It  is  manufactures,  Mr.  President 
which  create  the  chief  demand  for  the  produce  of  agriculture,  either  as  subsistence  for 
those  employed  in  them,  or  as  raw  materials  for  the  fabrics  wrought  by  them.  Hence 
it  has  grown  into  an  axiom  of  political  economy,  that  “  flourishing  manufactures  and 
commerce  are  indispensable  to  a  flourishing  agriculture;”  and  I  cannot  agree,  Mr. 
President,  with  the  honorable  Senator  from  South  Carolina,  (Mr.  McDuffie,)  that 
Manchester,  Birmingham  and  Leeds  are  our  natural  markets  for  the  consumption  of 
our  produce,  or  the  supply  of  our  wants.  On  the  contrary,  the  great  oracle  so  often  in¬ 
voked  by  those  who  belong  to  the  same  school  of  economical  science  and  policy  as  the 
•honorable  Senator,  expressly  declares  that  “  every  country  is  necessarily  the  best  and 
most  extensive  market  for  the  greater  part  of  the  productions  of  its  own  industry.”* 

If  this  be  true  of  countries  in  general,  how  emphatically  true  is  it  of  a  country  of  such 
vast  extent,  and  of  such  diversified  productions  and  forms  of  industry,  as  the  United 
States.  It  is  only  necessary  to  recollect  that  cotton  is  not  the  only,  or  indeed  the  chief 
agricultural  production  of  the  United  States,  to  be  convinced  that  American  agriculture 
must  ever  find  the  most  important  market  for  the  mass  of  its  productions  at  home,  and 
in  the  diversified  employments  of  our  own  citizens.  In  saying  this,  I  am  far  from  in¬ 
tending  to  depreciate  the  great  importance  of  foreign  commerce,  whether  in  its  moral 
and  political  influences,  or  in  its  positive  results.  On  the  contrary,  I  heartily  assent  to 
all  that  the  honorable  Senator  so  eloquently  said  in  regard  to  it ;  and  I  wish  to  see  it 
expand  and  flourish,  as  I  believe  it  is  destined  to  do,  hand  in  hand  with  that  great  inte¬ 
rior  commerce  which  must  ever  remain  by  far  the  greater  interest,  both  in  the  inappre¬ 
ciable  extent  of  its  numberless  operations,  (which  the  imagination  can  hardly  embrace, 
and  which  no  power  of  figures  can  estimate  in  a  country  like  ours,)  and  in  the  surpass¬ 
ing  importance  of  its  benefits  to  the  nation. 

It  is  deeply  to  be  regretted  that  in  the  administrative  organization  of  the  Government, 
no  provision  has  yet  been  made  for  collecting  such  data  as  might  enable  us  to  form  some 
approximative  idea  of  the  vast  extent  and  importance  of  our  interior  trade.  I  hope  it 
will  not  be  long  before  this  defect  shall  be  supplied.  In  the  absence  of  any  official  re¬ 
turns,  my  attention  has  been  drawn  to  such  estimates  as  have  been  framed,  for  separate 
portions  of  the  Union,  by  individual  industry  and  intelligence.  Among  these,  I  find  a 
table  annexed  to  a  report  recently  submitted  to  the  House  of  Representatives  from  its 
Committee  on  Manufactures,  containing  an  estimate  of  the  agricultural  products  of  other 
States,  annually  consumed  for  subsistence  or  manufacture,  in  the  State  of  Massachusetts. 
These  products  consist  of  cotton,  flour,  Indian  corn,  beef,  pork,  bacon,  hides,  leather, 
tobacco,  and  numerous  other  articles  of  agricultural  produce,  the  growth  of  other  States 
of  the  Union,  annually  imported  into  Massachusetts,  and  amounting,  in  the  aggregate, 
to  $40,741,150.  This  estimate,  for  a  single  State,  may  serve  as  a  sample,  to*  give  us 
.  some  idea  of  the  extent  to  which  the  agricultural  States  of  the  West  and  the  South  find 
a  market  for  their  various  productions  in  the  manufacturing  States  of  the  East  and  the 
North.  But  of  the  intimate  connexion  and  mutual  dependence  which  bind  together  all 
the  great  branches  of  national  industry— agriculture,  manufactures,  commerce  and  na¬ 
vigation— no  proofs  in  detail  can  be  needed.  You  cannot  wound  one,  without  inflict¬ 
ing  an  injury  on  the  rest;  and  any  sudden  innovation  in  the  laws  to  which  the  manu¬ 
facturing  industry  of  the  country  owes  its  present  prosperity,  would  give  a  sympathetic 
shock  to  every  other  interest  and  pursuit,  while,  at  the  same  time,  it  would  derange  the 
finances,  and  endanger  the  credit  of  the  Government. 

Having  thus  stated  the  considerations  which  determine  my  judgment  against  any  dis¬ 
turbance,  at  present,  of  the  act  of  1842,  I  might  here  close  my  remarks.  But  having 

*  Adam  Smith,  Wealth  of  Nations,  B.  r.  chap.  ii. 

t 


23 


I  observed  with  deep  regret,  the  marked  antagonism  in  which  two  of  the  most  distin¬ 
guished  States  of  this  confederacy,  South  Carolina  and  Massachusetts,  have  been  con¬ 
stantly  placed  towards  each  other,  and  the  sharp  words  of  recrimination  and  complaint 
exchanged  between  them  during  the  progress  of  this  debate,  in  regard  to  interests  pecu¬ 
liarly  cherished  by  each,  I  have  supposed  it  might  not  be  without  its  use,  in  moderating 
the  violence  of  these  collisions,  to  recal  the  solemn  compact  entered  into  directly  and 
particularly  by  thess  tw®  States,  in  the  adjustment  of  those  parts  of  the  Constitution 
under  which  the  interests  alluded  to  have  respectively  grown  up.  I  know,  Mr.  Presi- 
sident,  the  dangers  which  attend  the  office  of  mediator,  in  family  quarrels  ;  but  the  piece 
of  constitutional  history  to  which  I  refer,  is  in  itself  so  curious  and  instructive,  and  in¬ 
culcates,  through  the  remembrance  of  the  past,  so  just  a  lesson  of  mutual  forbearance 
and  moderation,  that  I  trust  to  be  excused  for  entering  into  some,  development  of  it. 

By  the  first  draft  of  the  Constitution,  as  it  came  from  the  hands  of  the  committee  of 
detail,  in  the  convention,  Congress  was  invested  with  the  general  power  to  “regulate 
commerce  with  foreign  nations  and  among  the  several  States.”  Out  of  the  generality 
of  this  grant,  however,  certain  exceptions  were  made  and  restrictions  imposed,  by  two 
subsequent  sections  of  the  instrument.  By  the  first  of  these  sections  (4th  sec.  art.  7) 
it  was  declared  that  “  no  tax  or  duty  shall  be  laid  on  articles  exported  from  any  State ; 
nor  on  the  migration  or  importation  of  such  persons  as  the  several  States  shall  think 
proper  to  admit ;  nor  shall  such  migration  or  importation  he  prohibited .”  This  se¬ 
cured  to  such  of  the  States  as  desired  it,  the  unlimited  privilege  of  importing  slaves,  free 
from  any  control  of  Congress.  By  the  other  section  referred  to,  (6th  sec.  art.  7,)  it  was 
provided  that  “  no  navigation  act  shall  be  passed  without  the  assent  of  two-thirds  of  the 
members  present  in  each  house.”  This  put  it  out  of  the  power  of  a  mere  majority  of 
the  two  Houses  of  Congress  to  pass  navigation  laws,  in  which  the  eastern  and  northern 
States  were  particularly  interested.  In  this  state  of  things,  Luther  Martin,  of  Maryland,, 
moved  to  amend  the  first  of  the  above-mentioned  sections,  “  so  as  to  allow  a  prohibition 
or  tax  on  the  importation  of  slaves.”  This  motion  aroused  an  earnest  opposition  and 
resistance  on  the  part  of  the  delegates  of  South  Carolina  and  Georgia,  who  declared  that 
their  States  would  not  come  into  the  Union  with  a  prohibition  or  restriction  in  the  Con¬ 
stitution  on  the  privilege  of  importing  slaves.  A  warm  debate  arose  on  the  subject* 
which  terminated  in  a  commitment  of  this  section  to  a  committee  of  one  member  from 
each  State;  and  on  the  suggestion  of  Mr.  Gouverneur  Morris,  tne  other  section,  requir¬ 
ing  a  two-thirds  vote  for  the  passage  of  a  navigation  act,  was  also  committed  to  the  same 
committee.  He  is  reported,  in  Mr.  Madison’s  Debates  of  the  Convention,  to  have  said* 
very  significantly,  in  submitting  his  suggestion  to  refer  the  two  sections  to  the  same 
committee:  “These  things  may  form  a  bargain  between  the  northern  and  southern 
States.” 

Here,  then,  we  have  the  germ  of  the  bargain  which  was  afterwards  formally  con¬ 
cluded.  The  committee  to  which  the  two  sections  were  committed,  reported  to  strike 
out  the  first  of  the  sections  as  it  originally  stood,  and  to  insert  “  that  the  migration  or 
importation  of  such  persons  as  the  several  States,  now  existing,  shall  think  proper  to 
admit,  shall  not  be  prohibited,  prior  to  the  year  1800,  but  a  tax  or  duty  may  be  imposed 
on  such  migration  or  importation  at  a  rate  not  exceeding  the  average  of  the  duties  laid 
on  imports ;”  and  they  recommended,  at  the  same  time,  that  the  other  section,  restrain¬ 
ing  the  passage  of  navigation  laws  except  by  a  vote  of  two-thirds  of  both  Houses,  be 
stricken  out.  When  the  report  of  the  committee  was  taken  up  for  consideration,  Gen. 
Pinckney,  of  South  Carolina ,  moved  to  strike  out  the  words  “  the  year  1800,”  as  the 
year  limiting  the  importation  of  slaves,  and  to  insert  “  the  year  1808.”  Mr.  Gorham, 
of  Massachusetts ,  seconded  the  motion.  It  was  opposed  by  Mr.  Madison,  who  de- . 
dared  that  the  term  of  twenty  years  from  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  thus  asked, 
for  the  privilege  of  importing  slaves,  would  produce  all  the  mischiefs  of  an  unlimited 
liberty  to  import  them.  The  motion  was,  nevertheless,  carried  in  the  affirmative,  the- 
three  New  England  States,  Massachusetts New  Hampshire  and  Connecticut  voting 
with  South  Carolina ,  Georgia,  North  Carolina  and  Maryland,  for  it,  and  the  three 


i 


24 


middle  States,  Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey  and  Delaware  voting  with  Virginia,  against 
it.  Thus  was  consummated  the  first  part  of  the  bargain  which  secured  to  the  extreme 
.southern  States,  (for  Virginia  and  Maryland  had  long  since  prohibited  the  importation 
by  their  own  laws,)  the  privilege  of  importing  slaves  for  the  term  of  twenty  years. 

It  then  remained  to  confirm  the  other  part  of  the  bargain,  which  was  to  enure  to  the 
benefit  of  the  eastern  States.  When  that  part  of  the  report  recommending  the  striking 
out  the  section  which  required  the  vote  of  two-thirds  of  both  Houses  of  Congress  to 
pass  a  navigation  law,  was  taken  up,  Mr.  Charles  Pinckney,  one  of  the  delegates  of 
South  Carolina,  moved  to  postpone  it  in  favor  of  the  following  proposition  submitted  by 
that  no  act  of  the  legislature  for  the  purpose  of  regulating  the  commerce  of  the 
United  States  with  foreign  powers  or  among  the  several  States,  shall  be  passed  with¬ 
out  the  assent  of  two-thirds  of  the  members  of  each  Houser  All  the  other  delegates 
of  South  Carolina,  Gen.  Charles  Cotesworth  Pinckney,  Mr.  Jno.  Rutledge  and  Mr. 
Pierce  Butler,  earnestly  opposed  this  motion;  declaring,  at  the  same  time,  that  “  it  was 
the  true  interest  of  the  southern  States  to  have  no  regulation  of  commerce  by  Congress 
■and  placing  their  vote  expressly  on  the  ground  of  concession  to  the  eastern  States,  “  in 
consideration  of  their  liberal  conduct  towards  the  views  of  South  Carolina ”  in  regard 
to  the  importation  ol  slaves.  The  motion  to  postpone  the  report  of  the  committee  in 
favor  of  Air.  Charles  Pinckney’s  proposition,  or  in  other  words,  the  principle  for  which 
the  southern  States  had  hitherto  contended,  of  subjecting  the  exercise  of  the  power  to 
regulate  commerce  by  Congress  to  the  restriction  of  a  two-thirds  vote,  was  then  rejected ; 
South  Carolina  voting  with  Massachusetts,  New  Hampshire,  Connecticut  and  the 
three  middle  States,  against  it,  and  Virginia,  Maryland,  North  Carolina  and  Georgia, 
voting  for  it.  After  this  decision  upon  the  motion  of  Mr.  Pinckney,  which  was  regarded 
as  the  test  question,  the  report  of  the  committee  recommending  the  striking  out  the  sec¬ 
tion  in  relation  to  the  passage  of  navigation  laws  by  a  two-thirds  vote,  was  agreed  to 
without  division;  and  the  bargain,  as  it  was  called  by  Mr.  Gouverneur  Morris,  between 
the  extreme  northern  and  the  extreme  southern  States,  was  finally  concluded  on  both 
■sides,  under  the  lead  ol  South  Carolina  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  Massachusetts  on  the 
other. 

Such  is  the  rise,  progress,  and  termination  of  one  of  the  most  remarkable  transactions 
in  the  history  ol  the  formation  of  the  Constitution.  Massachusetts ,  with  her  new  En¬ 
gland  sisters,  deliberately  yielded  to  South  Carolina  and  Georgia  the  privilege  of  import¬ 
ing  slaves  for  twenty  years;  and  South  Carolina,  in  consideration  of  the  boon,  yielded 
to  Massachusetts  and  New  England,  against  the  consent  of  all  the  other  southern  States, 
the  unfettered  power  of  regulating  commerce  by  a  mere  majority  vote  in  Congress;  a 
power  to  which  all  the  protective  tariff's,  which  are  now  so  bitterly  complained  of  and 
denounced  by  my  honorable  friend  from  South  Carolina,  (Mr.  McDuffie,)  as  “legisla¬ 
tive  plunder,”  owe  their  constitutional  origin.  The  bargain,  founded  upon  mutual 
equivalents  thus  given  and  received,  was,  as  we  have  seen,  solemnly  made  and  ratified; 
and  the  high  contracting  parties  are  now  called  on,  by  every  obligation  of  good  faith  and 
loyalty,  to  abide  by  and  fulfil  it — Massachusetts,  on  her  part,  to  refrain  from  any  inter¬ 
ference  with  an  institution  of  the  southern  States  which  she  threw  the  doors  of  the  Con¬ 
stitution  wide  open  for  the  admission  and  extension  of ;  and  South  Carolina,  on  hers, 
to  acquiesce  in  the  exercise  by  a  majority  of  Congress  of  a  power  which  she  gave  up 
without  restriction,  against  the  will  and  opinions  of  all  the  other  States  of  the  south. 

The  good  understanding  thus  brought  about  in  the  convention  between  Sou  h  Carolina 
■and  Massachusetts,  not  only  controlled  the  arrangement  of  the  particular  questions  I  have 
referred  to,  but,  unless  a  very  interesting  paper,  which  has  been  long  known  to  me,  is 
mistaken  in  its  information,  produced  a  general  unison  of  views  between  them,  which 
led  to  other  very  important  alterations  in  the  Constitution  as  it  then  stood.  The  paper 
to  which  I  allude  is  a  memorandum  by  Mr.  Jefferson  of  a  conversation  between  himself 
■and  Mr.  George  Mason,  one  of  the  delegates  of  Virginia  in  the  Federal  Convention, 
made  at  the  time  of  the  conversation,  which  took  place  only  two  or  three  years  after  the 
adoption  of  the  Constitution.  As  the  name  and  character  of  George  Mason  may  not  be 


25 


t  familiar  to  some  of  the  members  of  the  Senate,  I  beg  leave  to  tell  them  who  and  what  he 
was.  He  was  one  of  the  most  remarkable  men  of  an  age  which  abounded  in  great  men 
and  superior  spirits.  Mr.  Jefferson  has  said  of  him — “  he  was  a  man  of  the  first  order  of 
wisdom  among  those  who  acted  on  the  theatre  of  the  Revolution.”  He  was  firmly  re¬ 
publican  in  his  feelings  and  principles,  and  particularly  jealous  of  Executive  power.  He 
was  warmly  attached  to  the  rights  and  sovereignty  of  the  States,  and  constantly  sensitive 
in  regard  to  the  interests  of  what  he  called  the  “staple  States.”  These  opinions  carried 
his  mind  strongly  in  favor  of  every  practicable  limitation  on  the  power  and  influence  of 
the  Executive  Department,  and  in  favor  also  of  some  constitutional  security  against  the- 
abuse  of  the  powers  of  Congress,  in  cases  where  the  interests  of  the  “staple  States” 
were  supposed  to  be  particularly  concerned.  The  original  draught  of  the  Constitution,  as- 
it  was  prepared  by  the  committee  of  detail,  having  undergone  some  important  alterations 
in  these  respects,  in  its  progress  through  the  Federal  Convention,  he  finally  refused  his 
signature  to  the  Constitution,  as  a  member  of  that  body,  and  subsequently  exerted  all 
his  influence  in  the  Convention  of  Virginia  to  prevent  its  ratification  there. 

In  the  conversation  with  Mr.  Jefferson,  recorded  in  the  memorandum  to  which  I  have 
referred,  George  Mason  stated  that  “  the  Constitution,  as  agreed  to  till  a  fortnight  before 
the  convention  rose,  was  such  an  one  as  he  would  have  set  his  hand  and  heart  to.”  It 
contained  the  principle  of  ineligibility  of  the  President  after  a  first  term,  disqualification 
of  Senators  and  Representatives  to  be  appointed  to  office  during  the  term  for  which  they 
were  elected,  and  the  requisition  of  a  two-thirds  vote  in  the  passage  of  navigation  laws.. 
In  this  stage,  it  was  proposed  to  give  to  Congress  the  power  to  prohibit  or  restrain  the 
importation  of  slaves.  The  memorandum,  speaking  in  the  person  of  George  Mason, 
then  proceeds :  “  This  disturbed  the  two  southernmost  States,  who  knew  that  Congress 
’would  immediately  suppress  the  importation  of  slaves.  Those  two  States,  therefore, 
struck  up  a  bargain  with  the  three  New  England  States,  if  they  would  join  to  admit 
slaves  for  some  years,  the  two  southernmost  States  would  join  in  changing  the  clause 
which  required  two-thirds  of  the  legislature  in  any  vote.  It  was  done.  These  articles 
were  changed  accordingly  ;”  and  “  under  the  coalition  ”  thus  brought  about,  the  memo¬ 
randum,  still  speaking  in  the  person  of  George  Mason,  continues,  “  the  great  principles 
of  the  Constitution  were  changed  in  the  last  days  of  the  convention.” 

The  account  here  given  of  the  bargain  or  arrangement  between  the  three  New  Eng¬ 
land  States,  and  the  two  southernmost  States,  in  regard  to  the  importation  of  slaves,  and 
the  power  of  regulating  commerce,  is  fully  sustained  by  the  narrative  I  have  already  pre¬ 
sented,  from  Mr.  Madison’s  Debates  of  the  Convention,  of  the  particulars  of  that  trans¬ 
action.  How  far  the  same  understanding,  or  “  coalition,”  as  it  is  styled  in  the  memo¬ 
randum  to  which  I  have  referred,  may  have  had  its  influence  on  other  parts  of  the  Con¬ 
stitution,  I  am  not  prepared  to  say.  Certain  it  is,  that  the  principles  particularly  re¬ 
ferred  to  by  Mr.  Mason,  and  to  which  he  attached  so  high  an  importance,  were  all 
changed,  and  excluded  from  the  Constitution,  within  the  last  two  or  three  weeks  of  the 
sitting  of  the  convention  ;  the  ineligibility  of  the  President  after  a  first  term,  and  the 
disqualification  of  members  of  Congress  to  be  appointed  to  office  during  the  periods  for 
which  they  were  elected,  as  well  as  the  constitutional  restriction  upon  the  exercise  of 
the  power  of  Congress  to  regulate  commerce. 

In  recalling  these  important  and  instructive  proceedings,  connected  with  our  early 
constitutional  history,  I  have  had  no  purpose  to  cast  reproach  any  where.  Mv  wish 
has  been,  rather,  by  holding  up  to  the  two  distinguished  States,  who  have  been  so  un¬ 
happily  arrayed  against  each  other  in  the  course  of  this  long  debate,  the  example  of  the 
good  understanding  and  “mutual  deference  and  concession,”  which  prevailed  between 
them  in  laying  the  foundations  of  the  Constitution — to  bring  back,  with  the  recollections 
of  the  past,  some  portion  of  the  fraternal  spirit  of  their  fathers.  Virginia  was  strongly 
opposed,  as  we  have  seen  from  her  votes  in  the  convention,  to  both  branches  of  the  com¬ 
promise  which  then  took  place — to  extending  the  period  for  the  importation  of  slaves,  a* 
well  as  to  the  removal  of  the  restriction  upon  the  exercise  of  the  power  to  regulate  com¬ 
merce.  Upon  this  last  point,  she  had  the  steady  support  of  your  own  State,  Mr.  Pre- 


i 


26 


.sident,  (Mr.  Mangum,  of  North  Carolina,  was  in  the  chair.)  North  Carolina.and  Vir¬ 
ginia  both  attached  so  much  importance  to  this  principle,  that,  when  they  accepted  the 
Constitution,  they  each  did  so  with  an  express  recommendation  of  an  amendment,  de¬ 
claring  that  “  no  law  regulating  commerce  shall  be  passed  without  the  consent  of  two- 
thirds  of  the  members  present  in  both  Houses.”  But  their  views  were  not  adopted; 
and  they  now,  in  a  spirit  of  loyal  submission  to  the  constitutional  compact  as  it  was 
established,  cheerfully  acquiesce  in  the  exercise  of  the  powers  actually  given  to  Con¬ 
gress.  No  less  can  be  expected,  certainly,  in  all  their  federal  relations  and  duties,  of 
States,  whose  potential  voices,  as  we  have  seen,  made  the  Constitution  what  it  is. 

My  own  judgment,  I  will  say  frankly,  Mr.  President,  has  always  been  satisfied  by 
the  reasons  which  were  given  in  the  convention  for  not  imposing  the  inconvenient  and 
embarrassing  restriction  of  a  two-thirds  vote  on  the  exercise  of  the  power  to  regulate 
commerce  by  Congress.  Mr.  Charles  Pinckney,  who  submitted  the  proposition, 
enumerated  some  four  or  five  distinct  geographical  interests  in  the  United  States,  and  ar¬ 
gued  that  these  different  interests  would  be  a  source  of  oppressive  regulations,  if  no 
check  to  a  bare  majority  should  be  provided.  But  the  instinctive  sagacity  and  vigorous 
common  sense  of  Roger  Sherman,  answered  with  conclusive  force,  that  this  very  di¬ 
versity  of  interests  was,  of  itself,  the  best  security  against  abuse,  by  rendering  injurious 
combinations  impracticable,  where  so  many  divergent  interests  were  to  be  united  in  a 
scheme  of  injustice.  Mr.  Madison,  giving  a  practical  development  to  the  same  idea,  re¬ 
ferred  to  the  difference  of  interests  among  the  northern  and  middle  States  themselves,  to 
the  interior  agricultural  interest  even  in  those  which  were  most  commercial,  and  finally 
to  the  accession  of  new  States  in  the  West,  which  would  be  mainly  agricultural,  as  fur¬ 
nishing,  (in  connexion  with  the  checks  and  controls  existing  in  the  structure  and  organi¬ 
zation  of  the  Government  itself,)  every  reasonable  security  against  the  abuse  01  the  power 
by  a  majority  of  the  two  Houses  of  Congress. 

The  practical  security,  resulting  from  these  diversified  interests,  is  one  of  the  most 
important  features  in  our  extended  federal  system.  If  there  were  but  two  great  opposing 
interests,  danger  might  be  apprehended  from  their  collision.  But  this  is  not  the  case. 
There  is,  even  in  the  Northern  States,  the  navigating  interest,  aud  the  interest  of  the 
fisheries,  as  well  as  the  great  agricultural  interest  diffused  every  where,  to  balance  the 
interest  of  the  manufacturing  class.  And,  between  the  old  geographical  divisions  of  the 
North  and  the  South,  there  is  now  the  great  mediating  power  of  the  West,  to  which 
Mr.  Madison  so  fondly  looked,  to  preserve  the  peace  and  maintain  the  equilibrium  of 
our  system.  I  have  been  always  struck,  Mr.  President,  with  a  sagacious  remark  of 
Voltaire,  during  his  residence  in  England,  on  the  effects  produced  by  the  number  and 
diversity  of  religious  denominations  there.  “  If  one  religion  only  were  allowed  in 
England,”  he  says,  “  the  Government  would  possibly  become  arbitrary ;  if  there  were 
but  two,  the  people  would  cut  each  others’  throats  ;  but,  as  there  are  such  a  rqultitude, 
they  all  live  happy  and  in  peace.”  Does  not  the  number  of  diversified  interests,  spread 
through  our  great  republican  confederacy,  afford  a  similar  security  for  the  mutual  ob¬ 
servance  of  moderation  and  justice,  and  for  the  peace  and  harmony  of  our  political  sys¬ 
tem  ? 

That  diversity  of  interests,  in  which  the  honorable  Senator  from  South  Carolina,  (Mr. 
McDuffie,)  sees  the  certain  source  of  oppression  and  injustice  in  the  operations  of  our 
common  Government,  the  profound  philosophy  of  Edmund  Burke,  considered  the  high¬ 
est  security  of  general  freedom.  “  These  opposed  and  conflicting  interests,”  he  said, 
“  interpose  a  salutary  check  to  all  precipitate  resolutions,”  making  “  deliberation  a  mat¬ 
ter,  not  of  choice,  but  of  necessity  ;”  and  “  all  change  a  subject  of  compromise  which 
naturally  begets  moderation,”  and  they  “render  the  headlong  exertions  of  arbitrary  power, 
in  th efew  or  the  many ,  forever  impracticable.”  To  sum  up  the  whole  in  his  magnifi¬ 
cent  language,  “  it  is  this  combination  and  opposition  of  interests,  this  action  and  coun¬ 
teraction  of  parts,  which,  in  the  natural  and  political  world,  from  the  reciprocal  struggle 
Vf  discordant  powers,  draws  forth  the  harmony  of  the  universe.”  Or,  as  the  great 


27 


•philosophical  poet  of  England  has  expressed  it  in  lines  which  embody  the  spirit  and 
^genius,  as  they  reflect  with  the  truth  of  nature,  the  image  of  our  American  Union, 

Tis  jarring  interests,  of  themselves  create, 

The  according  music  of  a  well  mixed  state; 

Such  is  the  world’s  great  harmony  that  springs, 

From  order,  Union,  full  consent  of  things. 

I  have,  then,  Mr.  President,  no  fear  for  the  duration  or  the  practical  blessings  of  our 
political  Union,  if  it  shall  be  left  to  the  natural  operation  of  its  constituent  elements, 
however  diversified  or  heterogeneous  those  elements  may  be.  The  father  of  his  country, 
in  a  passage  of  his  farewell  address,  which  has  been  already  referred  to  in  this  debate' 
and  which,  to  my  mind,  never  fails  to  bring  with  it  the  sacredness  and  solemnity  of  in¬ 
spiration,  has  shown  how  mutually  dependent  and  indispensably  necessary  to  each  other 
are  the  various  parts  of  the  confederacy.  The  very  diversities  in  their  geographical  po¬ 
sition  and  industrious  pursuits,  are  but  additional  bonds  of  union,  making  them  mutual 
customers  for  the  supply  of  each  other’s  wants,  instead  of  jealous  and  interfering  rivals. 
When  we  look,  too,  upon  the  maps  of  the  country,  tied  together  as  are  its  most  distant 
parts  by  so  many  arteries  of  internal  communication,  natural  and  artificial,  it  is  impos¬ 
sible  to  resist  the  conviction  that  Providence  intended  it,  in  all  its  extent,  to  be  the  habi¬ 
tation  of  one  great  and  united  people.  It  grates,  therefore,  most  painfully  upon  the  ear, 
to  hear  suggestions  from  any  quarter,  whether  hypothetical  or  minatory,  that  such  an 
Union,  founded  m  nature,  cemented  by  common  interests,  and  consecrated  by  sympa¬ 
thies  and  recollections  of  the  loftiest  character,  can,  in  any  event,  be  abandoned,  to  give 
place  to  some  spurious  and  unnatural  scheme  of  separate  confederacies.  One  consola¬ 
tion,  however,  never  fails  toresultfrom  all  these  suggestions— that  every  scheme  brought 
forward  encounters,  in  nature  itself,  some  inyincible  obstacle  to  its  practical  accomplish- 


Let  us  take,  for  example,  the  hypothetical  dismemberment  of  the  Union  into  three  sep¬ 
arate  confederacies,  brought  forward,  in  the  way  of  argument,  or  warning  by  the  Senator 
from  South  Carolina,  (Mr.  McDuffie.)  He  presented  us,  I  think,  a  manufacturing  confed¬ 
eracy,  to  consist  of  the  eastern  and  middle  States ;  a  farming  confederacy,  of  the  western 
and  northwestern  States;  and  a  planting  confederacy,  of  the  southern  and  southwestern 
Mates.  1  he  first  observation  which  occurs  upon  this  arrangement  is,  that  the  honorable 
•senator  puts  the  southwestern  States,  lying  upon  the  lower  parts  of  the  Mississippi,  into 
he  same  confederacy  with  the  southern  Atlantic  States,  and  separates  them  from  the 
western  and  northwestern  States  lying  upon  the  upper  parts  of  that  great  river  and  on 
'he  Ohio.  But  nature  evidently  puts  her  veto  upon  such  an  arrangement.  The  western 
nd  northwestern  States  can  never  consent  that  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi,  the  great 
outlet  for  their  productions,  shall  be  under  the  control  of  a  foreign  and  independent  com- 
aunity,  levying  tribute  upon  their  commerce,  and  having  it  in  their  power  greatly  to 
mbarrass,  if  not  wholly  to  interrupt  it.  History,  too,  adds  her  testimony  that  such  a 
tate  of  things  would  never  be  submitted  to,  for  it  informs  us  that,  while  the  discussions 
;ere  pending  with  Spam  respecting  the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi,  under  General 
V ashington  s  administration,  the  people  of  Kentucky,  dissatisfied  at  the  delays  of  the 
egotiation,  openly  threatened  to  withdraw  from  the  Union,  and  to  assert  by  force  their 
ght  to  the  free  navigation  of  that  river,  if  it  was  not  speedily  obtained  by  treaty.  It 
iust,  then  be  considered  as  an  established  law  of  nature,  that  all  the  States  lying  on  the 
aters  of  the  Mississippi  must  and  will  be  parts  of  one  and  the  same  sovereignty;  and 
may  be  added,  m  the  language  of  the  valedictory  address  of  Washington,  that  the  only 
ficient  security  they  can  have  for  the  permanent  enjoyment  of  its  outlet  to  the  ocean, 
ee  from  foreign  obstruction  or  control,  is  in  “  the  weight,  influence,  and  maritime 
rength  of  the  Atlantic  side  of  the  Union,  directed  by  an  indissoluble  community  of  in¬ 
rest  as  one  nation.  1  he  honorable  Senator  from  South  Carolina,  then,  must  strike 
e  southwestern  States  from  his  projet  of  a  separate  southern  confederacy. 

ZV°°k  t0vtlie  °ther  eXtr?m™y  °f  this  suPP03ed  confederacy,  on  its  northern 
)nuer.  Where  is  Virginia  to  go?  The  honorable  Senator,  I  presume,  proposes  to 


•28 


include  her  in  his  planting  confederacy.  But  can  Virginia  ever  be  separated  from  Mary-f 
land  lying  as  they  do  on  the  shores  of  the  same  Chesapeake,  and  using  in  common  the 
waters  of  that  great  estuary  ?  Nature  forbids  that  they  should  ever  be  disjoined :  and 
the  very  necessities  of  their  position  forced  them  into  a  partial  union ,  by  means  of  the 
compact  they  entered  into  for  regulating  their  common  jurisdiction  and  navigation  upon 
the  waters  of  the  Chesapeake  and  Potomac,  previous  to  the  formation  of  the  general 
union  of  the  States.  The  partial  union  established  by  that  compact  may  be  considered, 
indeed,  as  the  germ  of  the  Federal  Union,  which  was  soon  afterwards  formed  :  and  nei¬ 
ther  Maryland,  nor  Virginia,  I  am  persuaded,  will  ever  consent  to  be  separated  from  that 
o-reat  confederacy,  of  which  they  may  be  said,  in  some  sort,  to  have  laid  the  foundation, 
by  the  example  and  effect  of  their  partial  union.  Maryland,  as  my  honorable  friend 
before  me  (Mr.  Pearce,  Senator  of  Maryland,)  well  knows,  was  a  rib  taken  out  of  the 
side  of  Virginia,  and  “  they  twain  are  one  flesh.”  So,  I  trust,  they  will  ever  remain.  If 
we  trace  the  natural  dependencies  which  connect  other  States  with  one  another,  we  shall 
find  that  Pennsylvania  is  tied  to  Maryland  by  the  Susquehanna,  as  New  Jersey  is  to 
Pennsylvania,  on  the  one  side,  by  the  Delaware,  and  to  New  York,  on  the  other,  by 
similar  and  even  more  necessary  connexions.  New  York  and  Pennsylvania  are  msep- 
erably  connected,  bv  the  strongest  ties,  both  of  nature  and  of  interest,  with  the  western 
States  on  the  lakes  and  the  Ohio;  and  when  we  come  to  look  to  Virginia,  on  that  side, 
she  is  in  one-half  of  her  territory,  a  western  State  by  her  geographical  position,  and  whe¬ 
ther  we  regard  physical  or  moral  ties,  she  can  never  be  separated  from  her  own  offspring, 
Kentucky  and  the  noble  States  of  the  northwest,  who  are  at  the  same  time  her  proudest 
jewels  I  think,  then,  it  is  demonstrable,  Mr.  President,  that  the  central  States  of  this 
Union"  on  both  sides  of  the  Alleghanies,  including  the  great  valley  of  the  Mississippi, 
are  tied  together  by  natural  bonds  which  neither  the  folly  nor  the  wickedness  of  man  can 
ever  dissolve  ;  and  if  any  separation  were  ever  to  take  place,  it  could  only  occur  at  the 
extremities,  where  the  centrifugal  tendencies  which  may  be  occasionally  manifested  will 
always,  in  the  end,  be  controlled  by  the  instincts  of  an  American  nationality ,  as  well 

as  by  a  sober  calculation  of  consequences  ,  ,  , 

But  let  us  suppose,  for  a  moment,  that  the  honorable  Senator  s  speculation  of  a 
southern  and  southwestern  confederacy,  which,  in  the  zeal  of  his  eloquence  and  the  ex¬ 
citement  of  his  imagination,  he  has  painted  as  an  elysium  on  earth,  did  not  encounter 
invincible  obstacles  in  nature,  and  were,  in  truth,  capable  of  being  reduced  into  practice, 
what  would  be  the  situation  of  its  different  parts  in  regard  to  that  free  trade,  which  is  to 
pour  such  uncounted  blessings  into  its  lap.  By  free  trade,  the  honorable  Senator, 
doubtless,  means  free  trade  in  cotton  and  the  returns  for  it  in  British  manufactures  ;  and 
oven  that  trade  would  not  be  perfectly  free,  for  some  duties  must  be  levied  to  defray  the 
expenses  of  this  new  confederacy.  But  what  sort  of  free  trade  would  Virginia  and 
North  Carolina,  as  members  of  the  new  confederacy,  enjoy  for  their  tobacco  and  their 
flour  The  former  staple  is  subjected  to  duties  in  England  averaging  from  one  to  two 
thousand  per  cent.,  and  the  latter  is  virtually  excluded  by  her  corn  laws.  What  guaranty 
can  the  honorable  Senator  offer  that  these  oppressive  duties  and  restrictions  will  be  abol- 
:  hed  f  It  is  also  evident  that  the  Senator  from  South  Carolina  has  looked  only  to  the 
trade  of  the  new  confederacy  through  its  Atlantic  border.  How  will  it  be  along  that 
extended  inland  frontier,  which  will  separate  the  supposed  southern  and  southwestern 
confederacy  from  the  bordering  confederacies  on  the  north  and  the  west?  There  we  now 
have  the  most  active  and  unlimited  free  trade,  under  the  sure  guarantees  of  our  constitu¬ 
tional  union  But  when  the  supposed  separation  into  distinct  and  independent  confed¬ 
eracies  shall  take  place,  this  unbounded  and  most  fruitful  free  trade  we  now  enjoy  with 
the  other  States— exempt  from  the  slightest  restriction  or  burden  of  any  sort— must  give 
olace  to  jealous  and  probably  retaliatory  and  hostile  tariffs  on  both  sides.  Has  the 
honorable  Senator  taken  this  into  the  account  of  the  blessings  of  the  new  confederacy? 
Has  he  counted  the  cost  of  the  army  of  patroles  and  custom-house  officers  along  the 
extended  inland  frontier  to  which  I  have  referred,  (open  at  every  point  to  illicit  trade,) 
which  would  become  absolutely  necessary  to  secure  the  execution  of  the  revenue  laws 


29 


Ip^on  both  sides  of  the  line  ?  Has  he  thought  of  the  constant  danger  of  border  collisions 
which  would  attend  this  state  of  things,  and  of  the  consequent  wars  and  large  and  bur¬ 
densome  military  establishments  which  would  probably  grow  out  of  it,  extinguishing, 
by  the  necessary  provision  for  their  expense,  the  last  remnant  of  free  trade? 

.But  laying  these  things,  grave  and  momentous  as  they  are,  out  of  view  for  the  pre¬ 
sent,  by  what  sort  of  tenure,  I  ask  the  honorable  Senator,  would  the  new  confederacy 
enjoy  that  free  trade  in  cotton  and  its  returns  from  the  workshops  of  Manchester,  Leeds 
and  Birmingham,  which  seems  to  have  entered  mainly  into  his  consideration.  Has  he 
not  seen  what  the  British  Government  has  recently  done  to  discourage  the  productions 
of  slave  labor,  by  laying  a  heavy  discriminating  duty  on  slave-grown  sugar?  How  long 
will  it  be  before  the  same  policy  may  lead  them  to  lay  heavy  discriminating  duties  on 
slave-grown  cotton ;  and  what  would  become,  then,  of  the  whole  fabric  of  free  trade 
which  the  Senator  has  so  laboriously  constructed  for  the  supposed  southern  and  south¬ 
western  planting  confederacy  ?  Is  the  absolute  and  invaluable  free  trade  between  the 
Iwenty-six  powerful  and  flourishing  communities  which  compose  this  Union,  and  held 
by  the  immutable  tenure  of  the  Constitution ,  to  be  exchanged  for  such  a  delusive  free 
trade  as  I  have  shown  would  be  the  heritage  of  the  new  confederacy — a  free  trade  preter¬ 
miting  entirely  some  of  the  most  important  staples  of  the  country,  which  would  still  re¬ 
main  subject  to  the  burthen  of  the  heaviest  rate  of  duties  abroad — held,  in  its  only  sub¬ 
stantial  branch,  at  the  will  and  caprice  of  a  rival  foreign  Government — and  in  all  its  vast, 
inland  operations,  oppressed,  if  not  destroyed,  by  the  jealous  and  retaliatory  regulations 
of  border  confederacies  ?  The  vast  importance  of  the  interior  free  trade,  established 
and  secured  by  our  present  happy  Union,  cannot  be  too  highly  appreciated.  The  hon¬ 
orable  Senator  from  South  Carolina  will  see  that  his  favorite  authority  (Adam  Smith) 
considers  the  “ freedom  of  interior  commerce ,”  even  within  the  narrow  limits  of  that 
island,  “  as  one  of  the  principal  causes  of  the  prosperity  of  Great  Britain.”*  How  in¬ 
finitely  greater  must  be  its  fruitful  results  in  such  an  empire  as  this,  embracing  in  its 
wide  extent  almost  every  variety  of  soil,  climate  and  industry  known  to  man.  It  is,  in 
truth,  the  chief  and  most  operative  cause  of  that  wonderful  and  unparalleled  develop¬ 
ment  of  wealth  and  industry,  which  the  progress  of  our  country  has  already  exhibited 
to  the  admiration  of  the  world. 

What  a  magnificent  vision  of  free  trade,  Mr.  President,  is  destined  to  be  realized, 
even  in  the  short  period  of  the  life  of  man,  by  the  vast  interior  commerce  of  this  country, 
if  we  remain,  as  we  will  and  must  remain,  an  united  people.  It  requires  “  no  angel  to 
lift  the  curtain  from  the  rising  glories  of  our  country,”  nor  does  it  demand  “  all  the  san¬ 
guine  credulity  of  youth,  and  all  the  fervid  glow  of  enthusiasm”  to  make  us  believe  in 
our  destinies.  They  rest  upon  the  established  and  well  ascertained  laws  of  our  progress, 
and  are  vouched  by  the  sober  and  unerring  rules  of  political  arithmetic.  There  are  those 
now  living  who  will  see  this  noble  country  of  ours  peopled  by  one  hundred  millions 
of  happy  and  industrious  inhabitants,  speaking  the  same  language,  professing  the  same 
religion,  citizens  of  twenty-six  and  more  independent  republican  communities,  which 
protect  them  in  their  lives,  liberties  and  property,  and  yet  all  under  the-guardianship  of 
a  common  government,  which  secures  to  them  the  privilege  of  a  free  and  unrestricted 
circulation  and  exchange  of  all  the  productions  of  their  industry  and  skill,  without  the 
slightest  let  or  impediment,  from  one  to  another  of  the  States  that  compose  this  great 
confederacy  of  Republics,  embracing  within  their  limits,  every  variety  of  industrious 
pursuits  and  natural  advantages  that  can  form  the  basis  of  a  rich,  flourishing  and  in¬ 
exhaustible  commerce.  Such  a  spectacle  was  never  before  exhibited  in  the  history  of 
man.  And  yet  there  are  those  now  living  who  will  see  it,  if  we  are  true  to  ourselves, 
5k>  the  memory  of  our  fathers,  and  to  the  just  hopes  of  our  posteritv. 

*  Wealth  of  Nations,  Book  V,  chap.  2. 


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Opinions  of  the  Tariff  and  Free  Trade  Candidates  for  the  Presidency. 
MARK  THE  DIFFERENCE  ! 

MR.  POLK. 


MR.  CLAY. 

Ashland,  June  29, 1844. 

Dear  Sir:  I  have  received  your  favor,  stating  that  our 
political  opponents  represent  ine  as  being  a  friend  of  protec¬ 
tion  at  the  North,  and  for  free  trade  at  the  South  ;  and  you 
desire  an  expression  of  my  opinion,  under  my  own  hand,  for 
the  purpose  of  correcting  this  misrepresentation.  I  am  afraid 
that  you  will  find  the  effort  vain  to  correct  misrepresenta¬ 
tions  of  me.  Those  who  choose  to  understand  my  opinions 
can  have  no  difficulty  in  clearly  comprehending  them.  I 
have  repeatedly  expressed  them  as  late  as  this  spring,  and 
several  times  in  answer  to  letters  from  Pennsylvania.  My 
opinions,  such  as  they  are,  have  been  recently  quite  as 
freely  expressed  at  the  South  as  I  ever  uttered  them  at  the 
North.  I  have  every  where  maintained ,  that  in  adjusting  a 
Tariff  for  revenue,  discriminations  ought  to  he  made  for  Pro¬ 
tection  :  THAT  THE  TARIFF  OF  1842  HAS  OPERATED  MOST 
beneficially,  and  that  I  AM  UTTERLY  OPPOSED  TO 
ITS  REPEAL.  These  opinions  were  announced  by  me  at 
public  meetings  in  Alabama,  Georgia,  Charleston  in  bouth 
Carolina,  North  Carolina,  and  in  Virginia. 

I  am,  respectfully,  your  friend  and  obed  t  serv 


Winchester,  May  29,  1843. 

To  the  People  of  Tennessee : 

The  object  which  I  had  in  proposing  to  Governor  Jones, 
at  Carrollville,  on  the  12lh  of  April  last,  that  we  should  each 
write  out  and  publish  our  views  and  opinions  on  the  subject 
of  the  Tariff,  was,  that  our  respective  positions  might  be  dis¬ 
tinctly  known  and  understood  by  the  People.  That  my  opin¬ 
ions  were  already  fully  and  distinctly  known,  I  could  not 
doubt.  I  had  steadily  during  the  period  I  was  a  Re¬ 
presentative  in  Congress,  been  opposed  to  a  Protec¬ 
tive  Policy,  as  my  recorded  votes  and  published 
speeches  prove.  Since  1  retired  from  Congress  I  had  held 
the  same  opinions.  In  the  present  canvass  for  Governor  I 
HAD  AVOWED  MY  OPPOSITION  TO  THE  TARIFF 
ACT  OF  THE  LAST  WHIG  CONGRESS,  as  being  highly 
protective  in  its  character,  and  not  designed  by  its  authors 
as  a  revenue  measure.  I  had  avowed  my  opinion  in  my  pub¬ 
lic  speeches  that  the  interests  of  the  country,  and  especially 
of  the  producing  and  exporting  States— REQUIRED  ITS 
REPEAL,  and  the  restoration  of  the  principles  of  the  Com¬ 
promise  act  of  1833. 

F  JAMES  K.  POLK. 


Mr.  Fred.  J.  Cope. 


2Sth  Congress,' 
Is/  Session. 


Rep.  No.  306. 


Ho.  of  Reps. 


REVENUE. 

[To  accompany  bill  H.  R.  No.  213.] 


April  4,  1844. 

Ordered  to  be  printed,  and  that  10,000  extra  copies  be  also  printed* 


Mr.  J.  R.  Ingersoll,  from  the  minority  of  the  Committee  of  Ways  and 
Means,  made  the  following 

REPORT : 

The  subscribers,  entertaining  views  essentially  different  from  those  of 
the  majority  of  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means,  respectfully  submit 
the  following,  as  a  minority  report : 

They  believe  that  any  modification  of  the  tariff  policy  is,  at  this  time, 
unnecessary  ;  and  that  the  bill  which  has  been  prepared  cannot  fail,  if  it 
should  become  a  law,  to  be  injurious  to  the  best  interests  of  the  country. 
They  proceed  to  offer  some  of  the  reasons  which  have  led  them  to  these 
conclusions. 

Little  more  than  eighteen  months  have  elapsed  since  the  present  law 
went  into  operation.  A  change  of  system,  after  so  short-lived  an  experi¬ 
ment,  could  scarcely  find  a  precedent  in  any  course  of  legislation.  The 
interests  which  are  involved  in  the  revenue  laws  of  a  populous  commercial 
country,  are  extensive  and  various.  A  system  once  established  implies 
not  indeed  absolute  permanence,  but  something  like  duration,  (unless  it 
works  amiss,)  as  opposed  to  early  and  capricious  alterations.  It  affects, 
in  a  greater  or  less  degree,  all  classes  of  citizens,  and  it  requires  of  a 
large  portion  of  them  active  conformity  to  its  rules.  All  those  who  are 
immediately  concerned  in  commerce  have  a  direct  interest  in  them  and 
an  almost  daily  recurrence  to  their  provisions.  They  form  a  contract 
which,  while  it  lasts,  is  absolutely  inviolable,  and  which  cannot  fluctuate 
frequently,  and  in  the  absence  of  adequate  cause,  without  producing  much 
inconvenience,  and,  in  all  probability,  serious  mischief.  A  revenue  system 
extends  beyond  the  population  of  the  country  by  which  it  is  adopted,  and 
involves,  in  a  degree,  the  concerns  of  foreign  nations,  and  the  individuals 
of  whom  they  are  composed.  These  last,  it  is  true,  have  no  perfect  right 
to  complain  of  any  caprice  or  fickleness  in  legislation,  which  is  not  guarded 
against  by  express  treaty  arrangement.  But  respect  abroad  is  not  to  be 
overlooked,  any  more  than  convenience  at  home ;  and  both  may  be  for¬ 
feited  by  extravagant  fluctuations,  which  have  no  inducement  but  mere 
party  preference  or  love  of  change. 

Blair  &  Rives, printers. 


2 


Rep.  No.  306. 

Stability  is  of  itself  a  source  of  credi.t  arid  advantage.  A  course  of 
trade  soon  accommodates  itself  to  existing  regulations.  Wiser  and  better 
ones  cannot  always  be  substituted  with  safety.  Acquiescence  in  those 
that  are  known,  and  have  become  familiar,  is  more  natural  and  easy,  as 
well  as  more  profitable,  than  sudden  and  compelled  efforts  of  conformity, 
even  to  improvements  that  are  new  and  strange.  In  the  proposed  pro¬ 
visions,  it  is  believed  nothing  is  contained  which  even  in  the  abstract  can 
be  regarded  as  beneficial.  They  are  liable,  therefore,  to  the  double  ob¬ 
jection  of  intrinsic  demerit,  and  shifting  and  uncertain  legislation. 

At  the  time  when  Congress  passed  the  tariff  law  which  is  now  in  force, 
some  measure  of  relief  was  called  for  by  an  embarrassed  treasury  and  a 
suffering  country.  Both  were  in  a  condition  which  no  ordinary  efforts  of 
skill  and  resolution  were  adequate  to  relieve.  As  soon  as  the  gradual 
abatement  of  duties  provided  for  by  the  law  of  the  2d  of  March,  1833,  had 
reached  a  certain  point  of  depression,  those  who  had  in  charge  the  super¬ 
intendence  of  the  finances  were  compelled  to  acknowledge  the  inadequacy 
of  the  revenue  to  meet  the  ordinary  wants  of  the  Government.  In  the 
annual  report  on  the  state  of  the  finances,  made  December  10,  1840,  a 
deficiency  was  estimated  for  the  year  1842,  of  five  millions  of  dollars. 
Disbursements  in  1838,  it  was  said,  had  amounted  (independently  of  the 
redemption  of  treasury  notes,  amounting  to  $5, 603, 503  19)  to  $33,851,- 
935  15.  The  expected  deficiency  was  ascertained  by  taking  the  year 
1838  as  a  standard  for  importations  also.  The  alternative  presented  for 
meeting  the  apprehended  deficiency  was  a  large  reduction  of  expenditures, 
or  an  extensive  modification  of  the  existing  tariff.  An  income  from  im¬ 
ports  was  not  hoped  for  beyond  “  ten  or  eleven  millions  of  dollars  yearly.” 
This,  with  any  collateral  aid  from  all  other ’sources,  could  not  be  expected 
to  approach  “  seventeen  or  eighteen  millions  yearly,”  to  which  amount  it 
was  intimated  that  the  appropriations  might  be  curtailed.  Although  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  referred  to  explanations  which  he  had  formerly 
given  in  favor  of  the  first  branch  of  his  alternative — reduced  expenditures, 
which  might,  in  his  opinion,  probably  prove  sufficient  to  meet  the  emer¬ 
gency,  if  the  reduction  should  be  pushed  vigorously  :  yet  he  naturally 
anticipated  a  want  of  coincidence  with  him  in  opinion  on  the  part  of  Con¬ 
gress.  He  was  about  to  depart  from  the  cares  of  Government,  and,  to¬ 
gether  with  the  Administration  which  he  served,  would  soon  leave  the 
responsibilities  and  the  labors  of  active  retrenchment  to  other  hands.  An 
adoption  was  suggested  of  some  permanent  change  in  the  tariff,  which 
was  deemed  not  loo  early  at  the  short  session,  which  was  to  close  the  offi- 
cial  duties  of  the  individuals  then  in  power,  in  order  that  full  notice  of  its 
character  might  be  given,  and  that  the  different  interests  most  affected  by 
it  should  have  time  to  become  gradually  adjusted  to  its  provisions.  The 
head  of  the  department  offered  to  present  the  results  of  examinations, 
which,  he  stated,  he  had  made,  at  any  moment  either  House  of  Con¬ 
gress  should  express  a  wish  to  that  effect.  These  were  the  suggestions  of 
a  former  Administration,  not  fully  developed,  but  sufficiently  indicative  of 
necessities,  without  active  provision  to  meet  them.  No  reliance  was  placed 
on  the  theory  that  low  duties  would  produce  large  revenue.  Duties  had 
fallen  to  a  standard  which  was  low  enough  for  a  touchstone  to  the  theory, 
and  its  best  friends  ceased,  in  the  day  of  need,  to  be  practically  its  advo¬ 
cates.  Imposts,  it  was  obvious,  must  be  raised  to  a  much  higher  rate. 


3 


Rep.  No.  306. 

before  the  Government  could  be  supplied  with  means  of  economical  or 
necessary  expenditure.  Wisdom  was  taught  at  length  by  actual  suffering, 
although  a  deaf  ear  had  been  turned  to  its  warnings,  when  they  were 
littered  only  by  the  experience  of  other  nations,  and  by  observation  and 
intelligence  at  home.  Truer  principles  of  political  economy  were  forced 
upon  us  when  want  knocked  at  the  door  of  the  treasury,  and  the  country, 
possessing  sufficient  importations,  but  inadequate  duties,  saw  before  it  the 
sole  means  of  relief,  and  admitted  on  all  sides  the  necessity  of  resorting 
to  it.  The  established  and  well-understood  rule  was  verified  and  con¬ 
firmed,  that  while  supply  is  produced  by  demand,  and  a  corresponding 
ability  to  pay  for  it,  neither  demand  nor  supply,  nor  both  together,  will 
create  support  for  the  Government.  Prices  and  quantities  of  commo¬ 
dities  imported  are  regulated,  not  by  the  relative  or  positive  amounts  of 
duties,  nor  even  by  the  absence  of  them  altogether.  They  are  influenced 
only  by  the  urgency  of  the  desire  of  the  people  to  possess  the  given  arti¬ 
cles,  coupled  with  the  means  they  enjoy  to  purchase  them.  Importations 
in  1839  averaged,  upon  the  mass  of  dutiable  articles,  about  double  those 
of  1840  ;  yet,  “from  and  after  the  31st  day  of  December,  one  thousand 
eight  hundred  and  thirty-nine,  another  tenth  part”  (of  the  excess  beyond 
twenty  per  cent.)  was  “  deducted.”  Importations  fell  off  largely,  though 
not  to  so  great  an  extent  between  1841  and  1842,  and  yet  half  the  residue 
of  the  excess  was  deducted  before  the  commencement  of  the  latter  year, 
and  all  of  it  before  it  was  half  expired.  England  does  not  keep  wine  out 
of  the  country  by  exacting  double  its  value  from  it  in  passing  through  the 
custom-house ;  she  does  not  exclude  tobacco  by  a  duty  of  twenty-four  hun¬ 
dred  per  cent.,  simply  because  her  people  want  it  and  are  willing  to  pay 
for  it.  If  her  regulations  respecting  grain  and  flour  are  nearly  prohibi¬ 
tory  as  to  those  articles  from  the  United  States,  it  is  because  they  can 
generally  be  procured  from  her  colonies  or  her  own  soil,  and  farther  sup¬ 
ply  is  not  required.  Importations  are  affected  not  by  imposts,  even  when 
they  approach  an  amount  that  appears  to  be  extravagant,  but  by  other 
and  independent  causes.  Revenue,  therefore,  is  increased  or  diminished 
by  the  standard  of  duties  as  long  as  they  are  kept  within  a  limit  which 
experiment  alone  can  satisfactorily  ascertain  and  establish.  It  is  unwise 
to  arrest  the  experiment  while  it  is  harmlessly  working  out  its  own  re¬ 
sults.  To  begin  it  anew  is  to  lose  all  the  benefit  of  acquired  experience, 
if  its  lessons  have  not  already  become  profitable  by  manifesting  practical 
errors,  and  obedience  to  them  is  not  the  indulgence  of  party  hostility,  but 
an  exercise  of  patriotic  duty.  It  may  be  added,  as  an  obvious  truth,  that 
demand  and  consequent  supply  are  influenced  by  the  character,  cheapness, 
and  quantity  of  domestic  productions,  as  well  as  by  the  ability  to  pay  for 
those  of  foreign  growth  or  fabric,  when  they  are  either  out  of  the  reach  of 
competition,  or  objects  of  preference  and  desire  from  any  other  cause. 

A  new  Administration  could  not  hesitate  to  confirm  the  necessity  of 
resorting  to  additional  duties  in  order  to  meet  the  calls  of  the  treasury. 
It  unfolded  much  greater  wants  than  had  been  admitted  before,  if  any  had 
really  been  admitted,  except  in  possible  anticipation.  A  deficit  now, 
(June  3,  1841,)  was  estimated  to  be  provided  for  in  that  and  the  follow¬ 
ing  year  of  $16,088,215  18. 

A  considerable  part  of  this  deficiency,  the  necessary  result  of  previous 
arrangements,  must  occur  soon  after  the  change  of  Administration. 


4  Rep.  No.  306. 


From  the  1st  of  June  to  the  31st  of  August,  1841,  the  demand  s  ofthe 
public  service  were,  -----  -$11,151,693  37 

The  ways  and  means  to  accrue  under  then  existing  laws,  5,900,305  07 


Leaving  a  present  deficit  of . 

To  which  being  added,  as  necessary  to  be  kept  in  the 
treasury  to  meet  any  emergencies  of  the  public  ser¬ 
vice,  . 

An  aggregate  deficiency  appeared  for  more  immediate 
demands  of . 


5,251,388  30 
4,000,000  00 


9,251,388  30 


Other  explanations  and  developments  were  brought  to  public  view. 
Although  for  a  period  of  twenty  one  years  before  1837  the  revenues  had 
uniformly  exceeded  the  expenditures,  yet  for  the  four  subsequent  years  an 
excess  of  expenditure  over  current  revenue  appeared,  of  $31,314,034  20. 

It  was  officially  announced  that  these  expenditures  had  absorbed  the 
surplus  in  the  treasury  and  the  outstanding  debts  due  to  the  United  States. 
Thus,  on  the  4th  of  March,  1841,  the  individuals  who  had  succeeded  to 
the  hopes  and  cares  of  Government,  found  a  treasury  exhausted  of  its 
means,  and  subject  to  heavy  and  immediate  liabilities.  These  were  not 
their  only  embarrassments.  No  provision  had  been  made  to  supply  ex¬ 
hausted  means  or  to  provide  for  immediate  liabilities,  unless  arrangements 
could  be  so  called  which  would  only  contribute  to  farther  exhaustion  and 
deeper  responsibility.  Above  all,  as  the  event  soon  fearfully  proved,  the 
treasury  was  bereft  of  its  credit,  and  for  a  considerable  time  was  unable 
to  avail  itself  of  the  wretched  consolation  which  alone  was  left  to  it,  of  bor¬ 
rowing  anew  upon  any  terms  and  at  any  sacrifice.  A  spectacle  was  exhibit¬ 
ed,  which,  it  is  hoped,  never  can  be  repeated  of  this  Government — disap¬ 
pointed  at  home  and  derided  abroad  in  its  abortive  efforts  to  beg  or  buy 
assistance  from  the  hands  of  friends  and  strangers.  If  the  present  tariff 
had  performed  no  other  office  than  to  rescue  the  nation,  a§  it  did  at  once 
from  its  discredited  condition,  and  to  restore  at  least  its  palmy  honors  in 
the  eyes  of  a  scornful  world,  it  ought  to  be  regarded  as  merit  enough  to 
save  it  from  threatened  destruction. 

The  treasury  of  the  United  States  was  left,  as  we  have  said,  burdened 
with  a  debt,  incurred  in  time  of  peace,  and  without  any  adequate  re¬ 
sources  for  its  immediate  need,  except  the  authority  granted  by  law  to  in¬ 
crease  its  liabilities.  An  enlargement  of  revenue  as  far  as  practicable, 
without  imposing  unreasonable  burdens  upon  commerce,  and  a  reduction 
of  expenditures  within  the  limits  of  strict  economy,  were  urged  as  early 
and  effectual  measures  to  be  provided  by  Congress.  Legislation  prompt¬ 
ly  followed  to  an  extent  as  great  as  was  safe  and  practicable.  A  large 
class  of  articles,  before  free,  was  subjected  to  duty.  Other  provisions 
were  made  to  increase  the  revenue  from  customs,  for  the  immediate  emer¬ 
gency  ;  and  inquir  ies  were  set  on  foot  with  a  \iew  to  still  more  effectual 
arrangements  at  a  moment  as  early  as  might  be  consistent  with  a  due  re¬ 
gard  to  all  the  interests  which  were  involved. 

The  year  1842  opened  with  an  estimated  expenditure  (including 
$7,000,000  for  the  redemption  of  treasury  notes)  of  -  $32,791,010  78 

Which,  after  deducting  estimated  net  receipts,  -  -  18,572,440  10 


Left  to  be  provided  for  - 


14,218,570  68 


I 


5 


Rep.  No.  306. 

Besides  the  amount  required  for  the  surveys  of  the  public  lands  and  the 
compensation  of  the  officers  employed  in  that  branch  of  the  public  service, 
payable  out  of  the  proceeds  of  tile  sales  of  the  lands  themselves. 

A  large  proportion  of  this  heavy  amount  was  wanted  too  soon  to  allow 
the  tardy  movements  of  legislation  in  enacting  proper  tariff  regulations, 
after  needful  information  should  be  received  from  authentic  sources,  both 
official  and  otherwise.  More  summary  relief  was  recommended.  It  was 
to  be  sought  in  an  extension  of  the  term  within  which  the  residue  not  yet 
taken  of  the  loan  already  authorized  should  be  redeemable,  amounting 
to  $6, 500, 000,  and  in  the  reissue  of  treasury  notes  previously  authorized 
by  law,  amounting  to  $5,000,000  more.  These  humiliating  expedients' 
were  regarded  as  necessary  evils,  and  as  such  they  were  reluctantly  re¬ 
sorted  to.  They  had  become  unavoidable,  by  a  course  of  policy  to  which 
those  who  wrcre  about  to  adopt  them  were  strangers ;  the  evils  of  which 
they  could  not  hesitate  to  remedy,  but  could  not  fail  to  deplore.  An 
amount  not  inconsiderable  was  still  left  of  actual  liability  at  the  moment, 
besides  the  prospect  of  redemption  at  a  future  day.  Both  were  to  be 
looked  to,  with  a  view  to  the  immediate  relief  and  permanent  support  of 
the  Government.  The  necessary  supply  was  to  be  derived  from  imposts 
on  foreign  articles  imported,  and  these  were  to  be  selected  with  regard  to 
the  actual  wants  of  the  Government,  and  a  proper  economy  in  its  adminis¬ 
tration. 

\  Thus  far  all  parties  would  probably  have  united  in  sentiment  and  deter¬ 

mination.  Burdens  imposed  by  lawT  upon  the  treasury  must  be  by  law  re¬ 
moved.  Their  removal  must  be  effected,  not  by  omitting  to  reduce  the 
debt  or  check  it*  augmentation,  by  permitting  it  to  become  permanent,  or 
by  new  temporary  expedients,  which,  postponing  merely  the' day  of  pay¬ 
ment,  would  not  finally  avert  the  necessity  or  change  the  character  of  the 
evil.  Nor  could  the  removal  of  these  burdens  be  wisely  effected,  if  at  all, 
by  any  system  of  direct  taxation.  It  was  not  seriously  thought  of.  With 
scarcely  an  exception,  all  who  have  been  entrusted  with  the  direction  of 
public  affairs  have  united  in  the  preference  of  imposts,  as  the  safest,  easiest, 
and  most  equitable  method  of  providing  revenue.  In  the  adjustment  of 
their  details,  difference  of  opinion  becomes  not  only  wide,  but  hopelessly 
irreconcilable.  The  time  will  surely  come  when  it  will  be  matter  of 
difficult  belief,  that  intelligent  minds,  directing  their  attention  tow  ards  a 
practical  and  familiar  subject,  should  have  drawn  from  the  same  indispu¬ 
table  facts,  plainly  and  constantly  before  them,  conclusions  directly  op¬ 
posite  to  each  other.  It  will  appear  yet  more  strange  that  conflicting 
theories  should  so  have  been  infused  into  the  same  palpable  and  practical 
truths,  that  they  have  assumed  distinct  and  dissimilar  shapes  and  colors 
to  different  visions ;  and  that  effects  w  hich,  by  some,  had  been  considered 
the  necessary  and  obvious  result  of  an  efficient  cause,  wrere  by  others  re¬ 
garded  as  a  separate  and  independent  self-sustaining  existence.  Duties 
are  lowered,  (for  example,)  and  prices  remain  the  same  or  rise,  while 
revenues  ebb  towards  positive  and  distressing  deficiency.  Duties  are 
reinstated,  and  prices  immediately  fall,  while  the  tide  of  revenue  soon 
turns  to  flood.  One  set  of  politicians  insist  that  if  the  abatement  had  not 
been  made  the  consequences  would  have  been  still  more  disastrous,  and 
they  require  a  repetition  of  the  experiment  in  the  face  of  existing  evidence. 
Another  set  merely  desire  that  the  practical  workings  should  not  be  dis- 
(  turbed  to  gratify  a  disappointed  theory.  Without  attempting  to  reconcile 


6 


Rep.  No.  306. 

or  account  for  differences  thus  absolute,  we  proceed  to  vindicate  the  prin¬ 
ciples  on  which  the  tariff  was  framed,  and  to  justify  its  practical  operation. 
These  principles  would  be  partially  violated,  and  this  operation  would  be 
totally  perverted,  by  the  proposed  modification  of  it. 

It  has  been  shown  that  the  wants  of  the  treasury  were  pressing,  and 
that  the  law  was  passed  with  those  wants  in  view,  and  in  the  belief  that 
it  would  provide  for  them.  It  was  recommended  by  the  fiscal  department 
of  the  Government.  The  purpose  stated — a  provision  of  supply  for  the 
treasury — was  inducement  sufficient  for  a  measure  of  the  kind.  Revenue 
was  required,  and  this  was  the  prolific  source  from  which  it  was  to  be 
derived.  While  the  Treasury  Department,  in  the  exercise  of  its  especial 
duty,  protected  the  finances  and  took  care  to  provide  for  public  expendi¬ 
ture.  as  one  responsible  branch  of  the  executive,  the  whole  superintending 
authority  of  the  nation  was  bound  to  look  beyond  the  single  motive  sug¬ 
gested  by  diminished  resources  and  urgent  claims.  The  collection  of 
revenue  might  be  made  burdensome  or  light.  In  its  application,  it  was  to 
be  tempered  to  the  condition  of  the  people.  No  particular  class  ol  indivi¬ 
duals  or  description  of  interests  was  to  be  crushed  by  inexorable  and  in- 
discriminating  exaction,  even  if  by  such  a  course  the  maximum  of  revenue 
could  be  obtained.  On  the  other  hand,  if,  while  avoiding  oppressive  bur¬ 
dens  everywhere,  particular  interests  could  be  fostered,  the  treasury  re¬ 
plenished,  the  whole  country  benefited,  and  no  principle  disturbed  or 
right  infringed,  Government  would  he  indulging  in  the  exercise  of  its 
most  salutary  powers.  Framed  for  the  promotion  of  the  general  welfare* 
it  would  thus  exhibit  some  of  its  wisest,  happiest,  and  most  beneficent 
influences.  Taxation  would  become  oppressive  to  nonb,  beneficial  to 
many,  and  convenient  to  all. 

In  the  suggestion  by  the  department  of  a  plan  oi  finance,  which  was 
revised  by  the  proper  committee  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  and 
adopted  by  the  last  Congress,  these  important  objects  appear  to  have 
been  kept  in  view.  Certainly  nothing  was  contemplated  which  could 
savor  of  free  trade.  In  that  phrase,  the  undersigned  perceive  only  another 
word  for  the  absence  of  all  law,  which  is  necessarily  the  forerunner  of 
ruin.  In  the  financial  policy  of  other  countries,  the  term  was  for  a  long 
time  used  to  mislead  the  unwary,  while  the  reality  was  avoided  with 
characteristic  sagacity.  It  has  no  existence  in  the  commercial  policy  of 
any  maritime  nation.  It  is  never  referred  to  as  worthy  of  consideration 
or  partial  adoption,  except  with  qualifications  and  definitions,  which  serve 
to  show  that  it  is  without  a  definite  meaning,  and  that,  if  left,  like  other 
terms,  to  explain  itself,  it  will  only  obscure  the  sense  and  confound  the 
argument. 

Looking  to  practical  results,  the  Congress  which  passed  the  present 
tariff  law  did  so  with  primary  reference  to  revenue.  Such  an  amount 
was  contemplated,  and  no  more,  as  might  be  sufficient  for  the  economical 
administration  of  the  Government.  How  judicious  was  the  estimate,  or 
how  happy  the  conjecture,  is  proved  by  daily  observation  and  experience. 
Prediction  has  been  so  signally  verified,  that  calculation  seems  to  have  been 
prophecy.  It  was  all,  however,  in  a  greater  or  less  degree,  experimental. 
Every  measure  of  the  kind  must,  in  the  nature  of  things,  partake  of  that 
character.  So  many  elements  enter  into  the  combination,  each  of  them 
created  or  controlled  by  circumstances  which  cannot,  with  certainty,  be 
foreseen,  that  nothing  but  the  event  can  stamp  the  character  of  the  pro- 


7 


Rep.  No.  306. 

reeding.  Never  was  a  moment  more  favorable  for  experiment.  If  the  reve¬ 
nue  to  be  raised  should  exceed  the  ordinary  necessities  of  the  Government 
and  the  peculiar  calls  for  interest  on  loans,  a  portion  of  the  principal  of  debt 
might  be  purchased  even  if  not  yet  strictly  redeemable,  and  treasury  notes 
might  be  paid  off  without  renewal.  To  both  these  objects  the  surplus  might 
be  profitably  applied,  and  the  margin  was  large  enough  to  tranquillize  any 
fears  that  it  would  exceed  them.  If  the  revenue  should  fall  short  of  ex¬ 
pectation  and  the  necessary  and  immediate  wants  that  it  was  to  supply, 
convenient  and  proper  objects  of  taxation  remained  untouched,  which 
could  immediately  be  brought  into  requisition.  During  the  year  1843, 
upwards  of  twenty-two  millions  of  pounds  of  coffee  were  imported  into  the 
district  of  Baltimore  alone.  If  it  had  paid  a  moderate  duty  of  two  cents 
a  pound,  it  would  have  yielded  more  than  two-thirds  of  all  the  revenue 
received  at  that  custom-house.  Experience  has  shown  that  a  duty  upon 
coffee  is  attended  with  little  or  no  increase  of  price  to  the  consumer;  and 
the  impression  was  general  that  if  required  by  the  treasury,  it  would  be 
just  and  popular.  At  an  earlier  period  of  the  present  session,  when  it 
was  apprehended  that  more  revenue  must  he  provided,  and  the  Treasury 
Department  had  announced  that  there  would  he  a  deficiency,  a  resolution 
was  introduced  into  the  House  of  Representatives  and  brought  by  one  of 
the  undersigned,  (confident  in  the  just  appreciation  of  his  motive,)  to  the 
notice  of  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means,  having  for  its  especial  ob¬ 
ject  a  duty  upon  this  article.  The  importance  of  arrangements  that  should 
not  leave  the  treasury  in  a  continued  state  of  exhaustion,  and  that  should 
facilitate  an  additional  enlargement  of  its  means  in  case  of  need,  will  be 
further  appreciated,  if  it  be  borne  in  mind  that  public  affairs  were  such  as 
to  threaten  an  interruption  to  the  pacific  policy  of  the  country.  The  pro¬ 
per  financial  officer  significantly  invited  the  attention  of  Congress  to  the 
circumstance,  that  its  condition  might  he  supposed  to  call  for  more  than 
ordinary  means  of  defence  and  security.  A  grave  negotiation  was  in  pro¬ 
gress  w  hen  the  tariff  bill  was  in  preparation,  and  when  it  was  reported ; 
and  the  final  passage  of  the  law  and  the  amicable  close  of  the  negotiation 
were  almost  precisely  simultaneous. 

While  these  purposes  of  revenue  were  carefully  provided  for  w  ith  as 
much,  perhaps,  of  fortunate  coincidence  as  political  foreknowledge,  other 
and  more  than  incidental  results  were  anxiously  Contemplated.  Among 
the  duties  which  were  to  be  imposed,  a  sound  discretion  might  be  exer¬ 
cised.  It  w  ould  naturally  be  influenced  by  an  earnest  desire  to  promote 
the  public  good.  If,  in  collecting  precisely  the  same  amount  of  revenue, 
the  chief  burden  could  be  placed  advantageously  on  one  set  of  commodi¬ 
ties,  and  others  could,  with  scarcely  less  advantage,  he  partially  relieved 
or  totally  exempted,  there  could  he  no  reason  for  making  them  all  alike  the 
subject  of  uniform  taxation.  The  whole  mass  of  consumers  thoughout  the 
country  would  pay  exactly  the  same,  even  if,  contrary  to  expectation  and 
experience,  the  consequence  of  judicious  duties  were  to  raise  the  price  of 
the  article  imported.  Two  pieces  of  merchandise,  subject,  each,  to  an 
equal  assessment  of  fifty  cents,  pay  neither  more  nor  less  in  the  aggregate, 
if  one  of  them  be  charged  with  sixty  and  the  other  w  ith  forty.  To  the 
treasury,  the  result  is  the  same,  provided  the  relative  extent  of  importation 
be  unaffected.  If  the  one  be  a  luxury,  and  the  other  a  necessary  of  life; 
if  the  one  be  anxiously  demanded  and  yet  be  not  particularly  useful,  and 
the  other  be  capriciously  neglected  and  yet  deserve  to  be  largely  intro- 


8 


Rep.  No.  306. 

duccd  for  the  convenience  of  the  people, — policy  would  dictate  a  resort  to 
the  unequal  assessment  which  has  been  adverted  to.  These  are  induce¬ 
ments  independent  of  domestic  competition.  If  the  comparison  arise  not 
between  the  caprice  of  fashion  and  the  tardy  pursuit  of  reason,  but  between 
productions  which  are  necessarily  and  universally  of  foreign  growth,  and 
such  as  also  spring  up  and  prosper  under  the  labor  and  skill  and  genius 
of  our  own  citizens,  motives  at  least  as  strong  are  presented  for  unequal 
rates  of  duty.  In  the  one  case,  you  possess  the  article  and  pay  its  price ; 

0  in  the  other,  you  equally  possess  the  article,  and,  in  paying  for  it,  you  re¬ 
ward  honest  industry,  furnish  incentives  to  ingenuity,  dispel  the  mystery 
and  expose  the  fraud  of  foreign  charges,  secure  to  agriculture  a  never-fail¬ 
ing  market  for  its  products,  give  to  commerce  employment,  and  enable  it 
in  its  true  spirit  to  substitute  barter  for  purchase,  and  thus  to  preserve  at 
home  the  sinews  of  wrar  and  the  basis  of  internal  exchange  and  trade, 
make  the  country  independent  and  self-relying  in  the  face  of  every  emer¬ 
gency,  and  destroy  the  last  vestige  of  colonial  degradation.  These  con¬ 
sequences  are  subjects  of  mathematical  proof.  Other  results  are  believed, 
by  those  who  have  candidly  investigated  them  and  traced  them  to  the 
proper  cause,  to  be  no  less  obvious  to  the  moral  sense.  If  properly  ap¬ 
plied,  duties  do  not  increase  the  price  of  the  article  on  which  they  are  laid. 
Whether  they  do  not,  in  many  instances,  diminish  it,  is  a  question  often 
too  much  affected  by  prejudice  and  passion  to  be  resolved  with  satisfaction 
to  all  who  enter  the  lists  of  controversy  with  a  partisan  spirit.  But  that 
the  duty  is  laid,  and  that  the  price  nevertheless  comes  down,  the  history 
of  trade  demonstrates,  with  a  certainty  as  unerring  as  that  which  accom¬ 
panies  the  postulates  of  exact  science.  The  curious  inquirer  is  at  no  loss 
for  an  adequate  cause.  He  finds  it  in  the  competition  between  domestic 
production  and  foreign  trade ;  in  the  lessened  price  abroad ;  in  the  improve¬ 
ment  of  machinery,  which  is  the  effect  of  myriad-minded  energy,  and  of 
daring  and  unshackled  freedom  of  thought,  habitually  prone  to  invention, 
and  ever  seeking  for  what  is  new;  and  in  the  restless  spirit  of  a  people 
whose  very  faults  incline  them  to  excel.  Without  waiting  for  a  demonstrable 
cause,  the  practical  politician  is  content  to  take  the  effect  as  he  finds  it. 
He  leaves  to  theorists  the  benefit  of  speculation,  and  places  his  belief  in 
w  hat  he  sees  to  be  true.  He  knows  that  experience  is  the  only  human 
source  of  knowledge,  and  he  adopts  all  of  it  that  he  can  derive  from 
others,  and  unites  it  with  his  own.  He  has  ascertained  that  the  necessi¬ 
ties  of  the  foreign  producer  to  sell  are  at  least  as  urgent  as  those  of  the 
domestic  consumer  to  buy,  and  that  this  necessity  is  enforced  by  the  in¬ 
creased  duty  to  an  extent  which,  even  if  it  amount  to  sacrifice,  is  prefer¬ 
able  to  total  loss.  The  duty  is  to  the  foreign  producer  an  additional  item 
in  the  cost  of  bringing  his  goods  to  market,  and  he  meets  the  domestic 
article,  which  pays  no  duty,  on  equal  terms,  only  w  hen  he  takes  this  addi¬ 
tional  item,  together  with  those  of  freight  and  insurance,  upon  himself. 
Prices  are  rendered  equal,  not  by  raisi  ig  those  of  home  manufactures, 
but  by  reducing  those  of  imported  goods.  While  prices  are  lessened, 
quality  is  improved.  Better  machinery,  and  more  skilful,  enterprising, 
and  industrious  workmen  are  found  at  home  than  abroad.  The  former 
neutralizes  the  advantages  of  numbers  on  a  scale  sometimes  of  three  hun¬ 
dred  to  one;  and  the  latter  give  to  every  working  hour  a  fulness  and  a 
force  to  which  the  reluctant  labors  of  European  pauperism  are,  in  a  great 
degree,  a  stranger. 


9 


Rep.  No  306. 

We  have  thus  glanced  at  the  reasons  for  discarding  uniform  or  horizon¬ 
tal  duties,  and  adopting  those  which  discriminate  between  different  kinds 
of  merchandise.  The  friends  of  this  latter  policy  maintain  with  confi¬ 
dence  that  it  may  be  exercised  without  a  particle  of  injury  to  any  single 
branch  of  interest  or  section  of  the  country.  If  in  practice  an  exception 
be  found,  it  becomes  an  admitted  evil,  which  the  same  friends  of  the  system 
will,  in  supportof  their  own  well-tried  principles,  be  the  foremost  to  correct. 
A  uniform  scale  of  duties  would  be  about  as  wise,  and  not  much  more 
humane,  than  a  uniform  scale  of  punishments,  such  as  we  are  told  one 
lawgiver  did  apply  to  every  species  of  crime.  Discrimination,  practised  with 
however  scrupulous  a  regard  to  the  interests  of  all,  avoiding,  as  it  may, 
every  sort  and  degree  of  mischief,  will,  it  is  still  objected,  unduly  enhance 
the  profits  of  particular  descriptions  of  business.  If  manufactures  be  the 
means  of  wealth,  they  are  the  property  of  no  exclusive  class.  Accessible 
to  all  kinds  of  persons,  their  fruits  may  always  he  gathered  by  the  hand 
of  enterprise.  Steam  has  almost  counteracted,  and  may  readily  compete 
with,  the  gifts  which  nature  has  bestowed  on  certain  parts  of  the  country 
in  the  shape  of  water-power,  and  all  are  fairly  on  a  level  in  their  access 
to  this  agent  of  power  and  source  of  profit.  Were  this  otherwise,  an  ob¬ 
jection,  if  without  other  support,  cannot  justly  be  urged  to  the  prosperity 
of  those  who  have  hazarded  much  in  confronting  sectional  hostility  and 
legislative  uncertainty ;  whose  premiums  must  not  be  inconsiderable,  if 
they  are  proportioned  to  the  risks  they  have  run  ;  and  whose  career  may 
be  shortened  by  causes  which  are  not  necessarily  connected  with  sound 
reason  or  calm  reflection.  .  .  . 

Statesmen  naturally  look  to  the  good  of  the  whole  country.  Discrimi¬ 
nation  developes  resources  and  calls  forth  energy.  In  the  result,  subjects 
of  exportation  are  provided,  and  general  and  diffusive  benefit  ensues. 
Does  the  proprietor  of  land  in  the  fertile  South  covet  for  himself  a  mono¬ 
poly  of  patriotic  enterprise?  Let  him  rather  share  with  his  distant  fellow- 
citizens  in  creative  faculties  ;  one  description  of  them  being  shown  in  the 
rich  products  of  a  prolific  soil,  and  the  other  in  a  luxuriant  harvest  of  nb 
less  prolific  human  skill  and  industry.  Exports  have  heretofore  been  con¬ 
fined  to  few  articles  in  variety,  though  of  large  extent,  and  those,  until 
recently,  almost  purely  agricultural.  Other  productions  of  the  soil,  far 
exceeding  in  value  even  the  rich  crops  of  the  South,  are  usefully  consumed 
within  the  country.  Large  cities  and  manufacturing  districts,  if  fanned 
into  prosperity  by  the  fostering  hand  of  legislation,  will  continue  to  absorb 
them.  An  increase  of  the  market  will  keep  pace  with  the  increase  of  pro¬ 
duction,  if  the  system  continue  to  be  cherished.  Let  the  protecting  arm 
be  withdrawn,  and  a  population,  which  now  consumes  and  pays  for  the 
ripe  harvests  and  robust  stock  of  the  States  that  especially  produce  them, 
be  permitted  to  fade  and  wither,  and  where  will  another  market  for  them 
be  sought  ?  Abroad,  access  is  shut  out  by  a  sagacious  policy,  which 
knows  how  to  prefer  and  protect  its  own  domestic  interests  with  parental 
solicitude.  At  home,  whenever  a  self-destructive  course  of  policy  dries  up 
the  fountains  of  remuneration,  nothing  is  left  but  that  the  superfluous  food 
shall  perish.  The  memory  must  be  treacherous  which  does  not  recall  dis¬ 
tressing  proofs  of  these  positions,  in  the  state  of  things  which  immediately 
preceded  the  enactment  of  the  existing  tariff. 

Exports  of  domestic  produce  are  an  indication  of  national  prosperity. 
They  are  marks  of  fertile  soil,  or  successful  industry.  They  pay  debts, 


10 


I 


Rep.  No  306. 

give  activity  to  commerce,  and  secure  a  return  of  all  that  may  be  de¬ 
sired  for  the  convenience  and  enjoyment  of  life.  In  the  history  of  Ame¬ 
rican  commerce,  it  has  rarely  happened  that  imports  have  not  largely 
exceeded  exports.  I  he  excess  has  repeatedly  risen  to  more  than  sixty 
millions  of  dollars.  Few  exceptions  are  to  be  found.  The  years  1811, 
1813,  1821,  1825,  1827,  1830,  1840,  and  1842,  stand  the  only  instances 
in  the  course  of  half  a  century  when  the  reverse  has  been  exhibited.  If 
it  be  asked,  why  a  theory  so  well  established  as  that  which  requires  a 
country  to  receive  less  than  it  sends  abroad,  has  been  violated  with  com¬ 
parative  impunity,  an  answer  is  found,  at  least  to  a  certain  extent,  in  the 
load  of  State  debts,  w  hich,  remaining  unpaid,  have  served,  notwithstanding 
their  enormity  as  a  disgrace  and  an  evil,  to  counteract  the  ordinary  results 
of  excessive  importation.  It  can  be  checked  hereafter  with  honor  and 
advantage  by  producing,  in  gradual  increase,  articles  of  export.  These 
have  been  already  much  .augmented.  They  are  capable  of  adding  largely 
to  the  amount  supplied  by  southern  soil,  which  of  itself  is  quite  inadequate. 

As  collateral  both  to  the  duty  of  encouraging  the  means  of  exportation 
and  the  obligation  to  discriminate  in  the  selection  of  dutiable  articles,  we 
ought  not  to  overlook  the  policy  of  protecting  the  internal  improvements 
of  the  country.  This  is  one  of  the  great  sources  of  development.  A  tariff 
law>  which  is  the  means  of  collection,  and  not  of  distribution,  cannot  alarm 
the  most  scrupulous  by  giving  Government  funds  to  objects  of  doubtful 
Federal  policy.  But  it  can  so  apply  its  provisions  as  to  facilitate  both  the 
access  of  foreign  merchandise  to  innermost  regions,  and  the  transportation 
of  the  products  of  the  interior  to  the  ocean.  When  the  operations  of  the 
law  have  been  fully  ascertained,  and  the  correction  of  errors  which  can 
scarcely  fail  to  find  their  way  into  minute  details,  shall  be  desired,  this 
w  ill  be  an  object  worthy  of  consideration.  But  a  sweeping  effort  of  de¬ 
struction,  which  would  impair  revenue,  blast  the  newly-encouraged  hopes 
of  domestic  industry,  and  arrest  returning  prosperity,  is  quite  a  different 
thing. 

If  the  country  had  been  found,  by  the  existing  law,  in  a  condition  of 
great  prosperity;  its  credit  high,  its  commerce  flourishing,  its  agriculture 
prosperous,  confidence  entire,  and  all  the  transactions  of  business* active ; 
and,  after  eighteen  months’  duration,  the  same  lawr  had  left  the  country  in 
an  opposite  situation,  credit  blighted,  commerce  languishing,  agricultural 
productions  lumbering  the  granaries  or  perishing  in  the  fields,  confidence 
withheld  from  friends  and  neighbors,  and  business  chilled  and  stagnant, — 
wre  could  not  have  complained  at  a  change  of  policy.  Coincidences  so 
striking  would  have  justified  the  belief  that  they  were  consequences.  It 
would  be  time  to  arrest  the  growing  evil.  But  wdiat  apology  can  be  offered 
for  interposing  when  nothing  but  blessings  surround  us  ?  From  the  mo¬ 
ment  the  present  duties  were  laid,  the  stream  of  prosperity  began  to  flow. 
Prices  fell  lower  and  lower;  confidence  was  infused  into  all  the  departments 
of  business  ;  Government  credit  rose  to  a  degree  almost  unprecedented ; 
industry  found  occupation,  and  labor  reward.  Numerous  establishments, 
which  had  been  struck  dow  n  by  evil  legislation,  or  had  been  permitted  to 
lauguish  for  the  w^ant  of  fostering  care,  raised  their  prostrate  and  droop¬ 
ing  heads,  and  breathed  again.  Is  this  a  time  to  meddle  with  wholesome 
laws  ?  Because  they  have  confirmed  the  dearest  hopes,  and  given  fruition 
to  desire,  will  you,  in  misguided  prejudice,  turn  aside  from  proofs  of  experi¬ 
ence  and  reason,  and  abrogate  the  causes  of  unmingled  good  ?  Let  us 


11 


Rep.  No.  306. 

examine  the  supposed  pretexts  for  an  interposition  which  can  allege  no 
motive  in  public  discredit  or  private  suffering,  and  must  serve,  if  it  suc¬ 
ceed,  only  to  prevent  the  full  development  of  wise  and  happy  legislation 
in  the  continuance  of  prosperity  throughout  a  smiling  lam  . 

1st.  Revenue  is  supposed  to  be  wanted,  and  its  increase  to  oe  promised 
by  the  contemplated  change  to  lower  duties. 

Never  was  a  moment  more  unpropitious  tor  such  a  plea.  Wit  a  '  ? 
receipt  of  revenue  during  the  last  few  months,  there  is  an  affluence  of  it 
since  the  commencement  of  the  year,  that  is  described  to  be  in  some  of  its 
daily  exhibitions  absolutely  without  any  precedent.  The  treasury,  which 
was  threatened,  at  the  opening  of  the  session  of  Congress,  with  a  large  de- 
ficiencv  by  the  annual  report  of  its  proper  officer,  soon  began  to  fill  its 
channels,  and  would  speedily  overflow  them,  were  it  not  that,  besides  its 
ordinary  wants,  loans  and  treasury  notes  are  to  be  provided  lor.  W  e 
must  demur  to  the  proposition  that  lessening  the  rates  of  duty  will  aug¬ 
ment  the  amount  of  them.  Sometime  after  the  present  law  went  into 
effect,  it  was  ascertained  that  while  the  imports  had,  from  whatever  cause, 
diminished,  as  compared  with  the  previous  year,  32  per  cent.,  the  revenue 
had  fallen  only  4j  per  cent.  Prohibition,  if  it  exist  at  all,  has  been  de¬ 
creed  not  by  any  excessive  imposts,  but  at  first  by  the  distressed  condition 
of  the  countrv;  and  when  that  \#as  gradually  dispersed’,  then  by  the  merit 
of  domestic  fabrics,  with  which  foreign  articles  did  not  venture  to  compete. 
If,  however,  additional  revenue  be  desirable,  let  it  be  sought  in  the  obvious 
measure  of  taxation  upon  a  class  of  articles  which  are  now  imported  free. 
It  is  difficult  to  conceive  how  so  certain  and  inevitable  a  relief  should  have 
been  forgotten,  while a  doubtful,  dangerous,  and  (as  we  firmly  believe)  dis¬ 
astrous  experiment  is  resorted  to  in  its  place.  If  this  unnecessary  expedi¬ 
ent  should  fail,  and  the  consequence  should  follow  which  reason  and  the 
laws  of  trade  predict,  in  diminished  revenues  and  yet  excessive  importa¬ 
tions,  (which  are  strictly  compatible,)  with  the  train  of  evils  which  they  are 
calculated  to  produce,  we  shall  regret  to  find  the  wants  of  the  treasury  met 
by  renewed  loans,  reissued  notes,  and,  as  a  last  and  reluctant  consolation 
and  relief,  a  compulsory  resort  to  duties  which  the  foreign  producer  will 
exclusively  pay,  on  commodities  which  are  now  for  his  benefit  admitted 
free,  and  which  the  domestic  consumer  will  receive  with  no  enhancement  ot 

Allusion  is  sometimes  made  to  the  support  which  the  Government  at 
one  time  received  from  a  scale  of  duties  greatly  below  ihe  present  stand¬ 
ard.  But  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  prices  were  then  far  greater  than 
thev  are  now.  A  very  moderate  per  ccntage  upon  invoices  of  iron  at  ^16 
sterling  the  ton,  would  produce  as  much  revenue  as  a  much  higher  per 
eentage  on  a  like  article  worth  £5.  Cotton  goods,  which  brought  in  the 
market  more  than  thirty  cents  the  yard,  might  well  be  charged  with  a 
low  ad  valorem  duty  which  would  have  beggared  the  treasury,  if  the  price 

had  been  from  five  to  eight.  ....... 

2d.  The  duties  are  supposed  to  be  two  high  for  any  just  principle  ot 

political  economy  or  commercial  policy. 

We  deny  the  justice  of  the  standard  by  which  the  amount  of  them  is 
ascertained.  If  there  were  any  facts  made  known  to  the  different  branch¬ 
es  of  the  Government  during  its  anxious  search  for  information  while  pre¬ 
paring  the  system  of  1842,  more  clear  than  all  the  rest,  they  were  such  as 
demonstatcd  the  fallacy  and  fraud  of  foreign  invoices.  Goods  themselves 


12 


Rep  No.  306. 

are  not  manufactured  with  more  consummate  skill.  The  law  of  183.3 
contemplated  a  system  of  lasting  ad  valorem  duties.  Ingenuity  was  tasked 
to  contrive  devices  by  which  they  might  be  perverted  and  abused.  For¬ 
eign  cost  became  nothing  but  a  name.  If  two  sets  of  invoices  were  not 
actually  forwarded,  as  was  frequently  the  case,  the  one  whereby  to  enter, 
and  the  other  whereby  to  sell;  the  single  document  was  altogether  illu¬ 
sory.  Prices  were  set  down  at  which  an  ad  valorem  duty  would  bear  no 
just  proportion  to  the  real  value,  and  sales  were  not  affected  by  them,  be¬ 
cause  they  were  regulated  h^  the  demand.  Some  pecuniary  compensation 
has  been  occasionally  derived  by  the  treasury  from  large  forfeitures  of 
goods  thus  illegally  imported  ;  hut  no  amount  of  money  can  compensate 
ior  the  demoralizing  consequences  with  which  these  irregularities  threat¬ 
en  the  honest  fame  of  the  whole  mercantile  class.  The  revenue  is  defraud¬ 
ed,  not  only  by  undervaluing  the  cost  of  the  goods,  but  of  the  packages 
that  contain  them,  and  of  the  carriage  and  shipping  charges  at  the  place 
or  exportation.  Yet  this  is  the  standard  by  which  the  present  rates  of 
duties  are  ascertained!  An  importer  compares  his  fictitious  invoice  with 
the  specific  duty  upon  its  amount,  and  the  result  is  supposed  to  be  oppres¬ 
sive  in  the  extreme.  It  is  known,  besides,  that  at  this  moment  prices  are 
greatly  reduced.  One-third  of  the  iron  manufactories  of  Scotland,  Wales, 
and  Staffordshire,  have  ceased  to  operate.  Others  are  selling  at  a  sacri¬ 
fice.  No  correct  estimate  can  be  formed  of  the  true  proportion  between 
duty  and  ordinary  value  by  such  a  standard  ;  and  it  is  believed,  besides, 
that  articles  are  often  inserted  of  a  quality  so  bad  as  not  to  be  the  subject 
of  import  except  for  the  occasion,  or  an  object  of  habitual  sale.  These 
practices,  while  they  have  partially  driven  the  honest  trader  from  the  field, 
have  taught  us  lessons  in  vain,  if  we  still  construct  our  tariff  systems 
upon  their  immoral,  deceptive,  pernicious,  and  now  detected  and  exposed 
irregularities.  It  is  with  a  knowledge  of  these  circumstances,  fully  au¬ 
thenticated,  that  an  American  legislature  is  about  to  return  to  a  scale  of 
ad  valorem  duties,  which  France,  and  England,  and  Prussia,  and  every 
other  country  which  does  not  choose  to  become  the  victim  of  shallow 
frauds,  has  exploded,  while  we  are  willing  to  rely  upon  such  deceptive 
proofs  of  value  as  have  been  universally  condemned. 

Officers  of  the  customs  throughout  the  country  have  expressed  their 
belief  that  little  or  no  danger  exists  of  direct  smuggling.  But  of  prac¬ 
tices  Which  have  the  effect  in  a  way  and  to  an  extent  the  most  pernicious 
by  the  use  of  fictitious  invoices,  all  agree  that  the  danger  is  imminent,  as 
long  as  the  temptation  exists.  Ad  valorem  duties  are  to  be  avoided,  as 
delusive  in  all  cases  except  where  an  infinite  variety  and  gradation  in  the 
price  and  quality  of  articles  coming  under  the  same  general  description, 
render  a  different  standard  extremely  difficult,  or  where  subsisting  ar¬ 
rangements  with  foreign  nations  occasion  embarrassment  in  the  adoption 
of  it.  Long-tried  experience  has  enforced  the  conclusion,  that  it  is  not  pos¬ 
sible  to  levy  ad  valorem  duties,  so  as  to  do  equal  justice  to  all  descriptions 
of  importers,  and  to  guard  against  evasions  and  frauds.  The  specific 
mode  of  levying  duties  insures  the  actual  revenue  intended,  destroys  the  in¬ 
centives  to  fraud,  and  takes  away  the  advantage  otherwise  too  frequently 
gained  by  the  exercise  of  prevarication  and  perjury,  to  the  injury  of  the 
moral  tone  of  society.  It  facilitates  the  business  of  the  custom-house  and 
of  the  importer,  and  it  induces  the  importation  of  good  articles  instead  of 
those  which  are  worthless  or  inferior.  Few  descriptions  of  merchandise 


13 


Rep,  No.  306. 

are  not  readily  brought  to  conform  to  it.  Silks,  which  among  various  . 
miscellaneous  articles,  are  proposed  to  be  made  the  subject  of  a  different 
arrangement,  are  peculiarly  proper  for  specific  duties,  the  value  of  them 
is  often  governed  by  their  weight,  and  many  of  the  staple  manufactures  of 
them  are  bought  and  sold  in  different  markets  accordingly.  It  is  only  to 
apply  the  relative  specific  charges  to  the  different  descriptions  of  them, 
and  equal  justice  is  done  to  the  importer  from  whatever  country,  and  to  the 
consumer  at  home. 

In  returning  to  the  obsolete  plan  of  ad  valorem  charges,  the  proposed 
law  even  dispenses  with  the  only  corrective  which  has  been  heretofore  ap¬ 
plied  to  their  abuse.  It  is  well  known  that  what  are  called  the  sweepings 
of  the  European  warehouses,  are  sent  to  the  United  States.  The  export¬ 
ers  trust  to  the  variety  of  purchasers  and  the  want  of  experience,  that 
they  will  meet  in  the  American  market  and  they  know  that  prices  at  all 
exceeding  the  charges  of  transportation  and  entry,  will  be  clear  gain. 
They  pour  upon  the  country  trash  of  different  kinds,  at  low  invoice  rates, 
and  it  may  be,  although  it  does  not  necessarily  follow,  at  seemingly  low 
prices  when  exposed  to  sale.  The  inexperienced  and  the  poor  become 
blindly  the  purchasers  of  what  they  consider  cheap  goods,  which  are  in 
reality  the  dearest,  because  they  are  the  worst  they  can  buy  ;  and  fortunes 
are  made  out  of  the  hard  earnings  of  the  humble,  the  industrious,  and  the 
ignorant.  To  throw  a  shield  over  these  victims  of  threatened  imposition, 
and  to  correct  an  evil  founded  on  the  one  side  in  honest  ignorance,  and 
on  the  other  in  cunning  fraud,  the  principle  has  been  resorted  to  of  aver¬ 
aging  certain  classes  of  goods,  and  assessing  the  duty  not  always  upon 
the  colorable  and  arbitrary  charges  in  the  invoice,  but  upon  definite  me¬ 
dium  prices  to  which  it  is  easy  for  all  parties  to  conform.  If  some  articles, 
by  this  process,  should  be  assessed  too  high,  it  will  not  be  the  fault  of  the 
foreign  manufacturer  or  shipper,  if  others  are  not  assessed  top  low.  Th& 
range  is  never  wide,  and  the  suffering,  if  there  be  one,  will  rest  not  with 
the  consumer,  but  the  producer  and  his  shipping  friends  abroad.  Hence 
the  system  of  minimums.  If,  in  truth,  the  system  be  unjust,  it  is  difficult 
to  explain  the  inducement  trt  continued  importations  in  the  face  of  it,  at  pro¬ 
fits  sufficient  to  counteract  duties  seemingly  prohibitory,  and  in  the  face 
of  what  is  supposed  to  be  inevitable  loss.  No  one  objects  to  them  except 
the  importer;  and  his  objection  somewhat  fantastically  resolves  itself  into 
the  argument,  that  nobody  understands  them  except  himself.  The  under¬ 
signed  cannot  admit  the  truth  of  the  assertion,  or  the  soundness  of  the 
argument.  They  can  discover  at  least  no  mystery  in  a  regulation  which  • 
wisely  fixes  a  rate,  or  rather  a  series  of  rates,  of  duties,  at  once  to  check  the 
free-trade  tendencies  of  foreigners,  and  their  disposition  to  trifle  with  the 
provisions  of  our  revenue  laws,  to  keep  the  true  standards  of  collection  at 
the  custom-houses  unperplexed,  and  the  true  amounts  unimpaired,  and, 
above  all,  to  save  the  poor  from  the  effects  of  greater  skill  and  experience, 
and  perhaps  of  artifice,  cupidity,  and  fraud. 

A  large  proportion  of  importations  is  made  on  foreign  account.  The 
actual  extent  ascertained  some  little  time  ago  at  the  custom-house  at  New 
York, was  sixtv-five  per  cent,  from  England  on  English  account,  and  thirty- 
five  per  cent,  on  American  account;  eighty-three  per  cent,  from  France  on 
French  account,  and  seventeen  per  cent,  on  American  account.  And  from 
all  other  countries,  (China  excepted,)  the  proportion  in  favor  of  foreign 
importations  upon  foreign  account  is  the  same  as  those  from  France,  viz. 


14 


Rep.  No.  306. 

eighty-three  per  cent.  According  to  another  account,  this  last  item  should 
stand  ninety-five  per  cent.  We  are  not  about  to  object  to  enterprise,  let 
it  come  from  what  quarter  it  may.  The  fact  is  adverted  to  for  the  sake 
of  guarding  against  a  too  easy  credulity  towards  those  who  have  interests 
and  wishes  directly  opposed  to  our  own.  When  the  foreign  importer  de¬ 
clares  that  duties  are  too  high,  that  the  mode  of  applying  them  is  unwise, 
that  low  duties  produce  most  revenue,  that  minimums  are  a  dangerous 
mystery,  and  that  the  example  of  Switzerland  is  worthy  of  imitation,  (a 
country  which  has  not  a  single  custom-house,  levies  not  a  single  duty,  and 
has  not  one  protection  to  commerce  among  her  laws,)  he  must  expect  that 
a  judgment  biased  by  interest,  that  advice  which,  if  not  hostile  to  the  in¬ 
terests  of  the  country  is  regardless  of  them,  will  be  scanned  by  other  eyes 
besides  his  own.  Half  of  this  remark  might  be  applied  to  many  persons 
engaged  merely  in  the  business  of  importation.  Yet,  it  is  believed  that 
the  proposed  law  is  founded  upon  suggestions  from  no  other  quarter. 
Tables  from  the  treasury  are  themselves  necessarily  the  result  of  invoices, 
the  fairness  and  accuracy  of  which  that  department  has  no  other  means  of 
testing  than  ourselves.  Not  a  few  of  this  same  class  of  importing  mer¬ 
chants,  alive  to  true  policy  and  truer  patriotism,  have  entertained,  and  ex¬ 
pressed  widely  different  sentiments.  Among  the  numerous  appeals  to 
Congress  during  the  year  1842,  were  those  of  mercantile  men  of  long 
experience  and  the  highest  respectability,  resident  in  the  great  commer¬ 
cial  city  of  New  York.  They  stated  their  extensive  engagements  in  the 
shipping  business,  and  in  receiving  merchandise  for  sale  on  commission, 
and  that  they  belonged  to  a  class  which  had  once  zealously  contended  for 
lowT  rates  of  duties  ;  that  their  opinions  had,  however,  been  changed  by  the 
discredit  and  disgrace  which  they  saw  brought  upon  the  Government  by  the 
want  of  a  suitable  revenue ;  that  increased  rates  of  duties  on  imports,  alone, 
could  effectually  relieve  the. Government  from  embarrassment,  and  place 
it  in  a  favorable  position ;  and  they  hoped  that  the  rates  of  duties  might 
be  so  regulated  as  incidentally  to  give  protection  to  those  descriptions  of 
mineral  production  and  mechanic  and  manufacturing  industry  which  are 
essential  to  the  national  independence.  This  communication  is  taken  from 
a  large  mass,  collected  from  all  descriptions  of  respectable  persons  and  re¬ 
presentations  of  interests,  by  the  Treasury  Department,  and  now  remain¬ 
ing  there.  If  the  law,  founded  upon  intelligence  diligently  and  exten¬ 
sively  sought,  and  largely  communicated  from  every  accessible  source,  be 
impolitic  or  incomplete,  the  result  cannot  be  ascribed  to  a  want  of  anxious 
and  candid  inquiry.  Information  is  believed  not  to  have  been  materially 
increased  since  that  time.  When  the  example  shall  be  produced  of  one 
nation  which  has  become  great  or  rich  without  having  developed  its  re¬ 
sources  by  fostering  the  productive  labor  of  its  inhabitants,  it  will  be  time 
enough  to  hesitate  in  the  adoption  and  active  pursuit  for  ourselves  of  a 
similar  policy.  France,  now  the  principal  silk  growing  and  silk  manufac¬ 
turing  country  of  the  world,  was  condemned  at  one  period  by  her  own 
statesmen,  as  incompetent  to  the  production  of  that  invaluable  commodity. 
Her  climate  was  declared  to  be  too  cold,  and  her  vernal  seasons  too  late  ; 
and  she  remained  under  the  ban  of  the  ignorance  of  her  own  resources, 
until  proper  protection  reversed  the  alleged  decrees  of  nature,  by  effec¬ 
tually  softening  the  rigors  of  her  climate,  and  hastening  the  opening  of 
her  spring.  Germany  was  slow  to  escape  from  the  pernicious  inculcation 
of  a  sordid  foreign  policy,  that  nations  could  become  rich  and  powerful 


15 


Rep.  No.  306. 

only  by  universal  commercial  freedom.  Protection  was  at  length  secur¬ 
ed  to  manufactures  by  the  system  of  the  Zoll  Verein  ;  and  articles  similar 
to  those  imported  under  a  high  tariff  duty  became  better  and  cheaper  than 
those  of  foreign  production,  while  agricultural  products  rose  everywhere 
in  price,  and  the  value  of  landed  property  became  greatly  enhanced. 
Machinery  was  substituted  for  handy  work,  and  while  all  branches  of  in¬ 
dustry  throve  in  proportion  to  the  protection  they  received,  some  were 
enabled  altogether  to  supplant  those  of  foreign  growth.  That  country  now 
practically  experiences  and  exhibits  the  value  and  necessity  of  a  system 
of  domestic  manufactures,  protected  and  developed  for  national  indepen¬ 
dence  and  power.  England  has  by  shining  example  taught  these  same 
lessons,  with  occasional  disavowal  of  them  in  theory,  by  statesmen  who 
were  too  wise  to  omit  an  observance  of  them  in  practice.  Rude  in  her 
agriculture  and  limited  in  her  resources,  her  history  was  far  advanced 
before  she  had  any  manufactures  for  exportation.  Heavy  subsidies  on  the 
exportation  of  wool  formed  a  large  part  of  the  royal  revenues.  Foreign 
artisans  were  invited  from  the  rich  cities  of  Continental  Europe ;  foreign 
commodities,  similar  to  those  which  it  was  designed  to  encourage,  were 
strictly  prohibited  from  importation  on  pain  of  forfeiture  and  other  pun¬ 
ishment,  and  the  consequences  are  exhibited  in  a  comparison  between  the 
past  and  present  condition  of  the  most  powerful  nation  on  the  face  of  the 
globe.  A  commerce  which,  at  the  commencement  of  the  system,  had 
scarcely  found  its  way  to  the  Baltic  or  the  Mediterranean,  now  fills  the 
habitable  world.  Agriculture,  which  had  no  existence  as  an  art,  has  be¬ 
come  a  science,  and  has  made  a  rudely  cultivated  island  one  entire  gar¬ 
den,  enclosing,  from  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  George  III  to  the  year 
18  j4,  6,840,540  acres  of  land.  Manufactures,  protected  and  encouraged, 
have,  more  than  any  other  cause,  produced  these  wonders.  Magnificence 
and  power  and  wealth  are  the  effects  of  her  exact  and  rigorous  protective 
policy,  which,  extended  over  creative  arts  in  the  shape  of  manufactures,  ap¬ 
parently  the  most  simple,  has,  like  the  wand  of  the  enchanter,  changed  the 
whole  face  of  things.  No  nation  can  become  great  by  agriculture  alone. 
Agriculture  alone  can  scarcely  flourish.  It  is  by  a  union  with  the  me¬ 
chanic  arts,  in  proper  equilibrium,  that  both  become  sources  of  national 
grandeur.  With  the  largest  revenues  ever  collected  in  any  nation,  England 
derives  little  of  them  from  her  soil.  While,  in  1 84 1,  her  other  taxes  amount¬ 
ed  to  £51, 997, '000,  the  land  tax  was  only  £1,183,585.  The  comparison  is 
not  without  interest  between  this  and  the  policy  of  other  European  nations. 
France  at  the  same  time  had  a  land  tax  of  £23,250,000,  other  taxes  £i7,- 
5u0,000.  Prussia,  land  tax,  £3,994,000,  other  taxes,  £->,6  -7,000.  Austria, 
land  tax,  £8,795,000,  other  taxes.  £r, 700, 000.  Within  less  than  forty  years, 
the  theory  has  been  ingeniously  maintained,  that  England  herself,  the 
commercial  emporium  of  the  world,  could  fall  back  on  those  her  other  re¬ 
sources,  and  maintain  her  supremacy,  independently  of  her  commerce. 
While  these  and  other  instances  are  before  our  eyes  of  the  necessity  of 
encouragement,  and  the  value  of  the  arts  which  it  unfolds,  as  manifested 
in  the  prosperity  of  nations,  instances  no  less  striking  are  at  hand  of  the 
downward  tendency  of  those  which  have  neglected  to  keep  alive,  and  the 
perpetual  blight  upon  others  which  have  habitually  withheld  the  genial 
influence.  Spain  w  as  the  parent  of  rich  colonies,  the  possessor  of  exhaust¬ 
less  mines,  the  recipient  for  centuries  of  the  precious  metals  to  an  extent 
exceeding  twenty-one  millions  of  dollars  a  year  Her  gold  and  silver 


16 


Rep.  No.  306. 

were  paid  to  other  countries  for  productions  which  her  stout  population, 
fine  climate,  and  prolific  soil,  were  well  able  to  unfold  at  borne,  and  she 
stands  where  she  did  in  tirrres  long  since  past,  a  stranger  to  improvement 
and  distanced  In  the  career  of  civilization.  Travellers  describe  the  situa¬ 
tion  of  the  country  as  miserable  in  the  extreme.  With  corn  in  great 
abundance,  and  wines  of  the  best  quality,  so  cheap  that  the  driver  was  in 
the  habit  of  bathing  with  them  the  shoulders  of  his  mules,  the  people  (say 
they)  were  literally  starving ;  the  roads  covered  with  beggars  and  gypsies  ; 
human  habitations  by  hundreds  excavated  in  banks  of  clay,  with  nothing 
in  them  better  than  straw  for  fuel,  and  often  literally  nothing  for  food  ; 
vast  numbers  perishing  with  cold  and  hunger ;  highways  beset  with 
regular  banditti,  or  with  itinerant  peasantry,  who  leave  their  work  to  rob 
and  murder ;  and  a  state  of  society  which  forbids  the  punishment  and 
almost  the  prosecution  of  the  offender. 

With  these  examples  in  view,  it  would  seem  scarcely  possible  that 
American  legislation  should  avoid  a  course  which  has  been  attended  by 
so  many  benefits,  or,  by  avoiding  it,  endanger  a  lapse  into  disgrace  and 
ignominy.  .  In  Massachusetts,  where  manufactures,  under  due  encourage¬ 
ment,  flourish,  the  proportion  of  children  attending  school  to  the  whole 
population  has  been  computed  to  be  as  one  to  three.  In  Spain,  where 
encouragement  and  manufactures  are  not  the  policy  of  the  Government,  the 
estimate  has  been  of  1  to  346!  Similar  parallels  have  been  run  in  other 
countries,  and  from  them  not  dissimilar  inferences  may  be  draw  n.  In 
England  the  proportion  is  1  to  16 ;  in  Scotland  1  to  10  ;  and  in  Germany 
1  to  9.  It  is  not  intended  that  a  necessary  and  immediate  connexion 
exists  between  protection  of  manufactures  or  manufactures  themselves  and 
education  ;  but  it  is  intended  that  general  prosperity  is  promoted  by  them 
and  the  policy  which  sustains  them,  and  that  prosperity  confers  the  pow  er 
to  do  good,  which,  in  the  present  day,  is  exhibited  and  promoted  in  nothing 
so  conspicuously  as  the  tendencies  towards  universal  education. 

One  of  the  most  striking  advantages  of  the  system  we  are  advocating 
is  its  entire  conformity  to  free  institutions  of  Government;  and  its  effect 
in  aw  akening  the  faculties,  expanding  the  views,  employing  the  energies, 
and  elevating  the  moral,  social,  and  political  standard  of  the  people.  In 
England,  the  improvements  and  discoveries,  as  well  as  the  assiduous  cul¬ 
tivation  and  rapid  growth  of  manufactures  have  been  among  the  humble 
in  birth  and  station ;  whose  hands  have  been  employed  upon  the  fabrics 
and  the  machinery  which  undivided  and  deeply  interested  care,  and  strong 
natural  minds  have  led  them,  at  first  for  convenience,  and  afterwards  for 
emolument,  to  improve  and  simplify.  It  is  under  governments  w  here  pro¬ 
perty  is  secure  that  its  value  and  increase  become  objects  of  interest. 
Where  possessions  have  no  guaranty  but  the  will  of  a  despot,  property 
excites  little  interest  and  undergoes  little  melioration.  Everything  that 
contributes  to  its  enhancement  is  neglected  by  the  government,  and  indif¬ 
ferent  to  the  people.  If  millions  come  into  the  country  for  use,  or  as  a 
medium  of  exchange,  or  hoarded  treasures,  they  remain  unfruitful  and 
unmultiplied.8'  But  where  liberty  inspires  energy  to  bestow,  by  skill  and 
labor,  augmented  value  upon  natural  productions,  and  law  protects  the 
stores  which  ingenuity  and  industry  have  gathered,  hundreds  of  millions 
are  created  out  of  the  original  productive  stock.  It  has  been  well  said  of 
Switzerland,  that  neither  tables  of  economy  nor  dissertations  upon  agri¬ 
culture  taught  the  summits  of  her  mountains  to  wave  w  ith  corn.  The 


Rep.  No.  306.  17 

strong  hand  of  liberty  guided  the  ploughshare  through  their  rugged  pre¬ 
cipices,  and  formed  the  furrow  on  their  barren  sides. 

If  examples  from  abroad  fail  to  bring  conviction  to  the  mind,  let  us  seek 
instruction  from  domestic  history.  For  many  years  after  the  Revolution 
a  condition  little  short  of  vassalage  existed  in  many  respects  among  the 
freemen  of  the  United  States.  They  wore  such  garments,  trod  upon  such 
carpets,  guarded  themselves  with  such  locks,  bolts,  bars,  and  hinges, 
drank  out  of  such  glass,  cooked  their  food  with  such  vessels,  mended  their 
fences  with  such  nails,  and  made  their  pens  and  ate  their  meals  with  such 
knives,  as  the  once  parent  country  chose  to  permit  them  to  have ;  and  at 
such  prices  as  her  artisans,  merchants,  and  statesmen,  combined,  thought 
fit  to  demand.  Some  feeble  efforts  to  attain  an  independence  which  had 
been  gallantly  fought  for  and  reluctantly  acknowledged,  but  never  in 
reality  enjoyed,  were  made,  when  a  succession  of  impediments  to  inter¬ 
course,  consummated,  as  was  supposed,  by  open  hostilities,  inflicted  upon 
us  the  penalty  due  to  wilful  blindness  or  neglect.  Even  the  “hobnail,” 
which  had  been  tauntingly  declared  to  be  beyond  the  skill  of  American 
workmen,  was  withheld.  Prices  before  paid  in  ignorance,  were  now 
more  than  doubled  by  the  rigors  of  war,  and  were  submitted  to  from  stern 
necessity.  Necessary  importations  were  made,  through  occasional  ar¬ 
rangements  with  the  enemy  ;  and  a  trade  was  carried  on,  under  licenses, 
in  positive  violation  of  tlfe  allegiance  of  the  citizen.  At  such  a  time, 
when  the  art  of  spinning  by  machinery  and  weaving  by  hand  had  been, 
to  a  certain  extent,  known  and  exercised,  a  few  persons  in  Boston,  hav¬ 
ing  heard  of  a  new  method  of  weaving  by  power-loom,  by  which  immense 
labor  and  expense  could  be  saved,  resolved  upon  adopting  it.  An  act  of 
incorporation  was  obtained  from  the  Legislature  of  Massachusetts,  and  a 
small  water-power  was  purchased  at  Waltham.  The  “speeder”  was 
soon  added  to  the  machinery.  Thus  fortified  and  thus  prepared,  the  en¬ 
terprise  was  set  in  motion.  Finding  that  the  imported  goods  ffcll  short 
in  measurement  of  their  widths  in  the  invoice,  the  Waltham  company 
honestly  determined  that  when  the  yardstick  should  be  laid  on,  it  would 
find  fair  and  full  measurement ;  and  the  widths  were  graduated  according¬ 
ly  at  thirty-seven  inches  to  the  yard.  Finding,  too,  the  light  and  flimsy 
texture  of  the  foreign  goods,  for  which  they  were  about  to  make  a  domes¬ 
tic  substitute,  they  resolved  to  give  firmness  and  substance  to  their  fabrics 
for  wear  and  service,  adapting  them  to  the  wants  of  farmers  and  laboring 
classes,  w  ho  were  to  be  the  great  consumers  of  them,  as  they  had  been  of 
the  light  and  thin  “  gurrahs”  and  “baftas,”  of  which  they  were  to  take 
the  place.  An  article  was  produced  which  is  now  known  as  the  great 
leading  fabric  of  the  country.  It  was  sold  at  thirty-two  cents  the  yard, 
by  the  name  and  with  the  stamp  of  “  No.  1,  Waltham  cottons.”  This 
same  production,  preserving  its  honest  dimensions  and  substantial  texture, 
has,  from  humble  beginnings,  grown  to  an  extent  which  literally  supplies 
the  home  market,  and  is  sent  in  large  quantities  to  foreign  countries.  It 
was  sold  in  the  autumn  of  1842  and  spring  of  1843  at  six  cents  and  a  half 
the  yard,  and  brings  now  somewhat  more.  It  has  been  disposed  of  more 
extensively  than  any  other  similar  article,  in  the  South  Americarrmarkets, 
where  the  American  stamp  is  sometimes  affixed  to  British  goods,  in  w  hich 
the  fabric  also  has  been  imitated  in  vain.  Having  been  secured  in  the 
preferences  of  a  home  market,  the  domestic  manufacturers  have  been  en¬ 
abled,  step  by  step,  in  the  application  of  skill  and  improved  machinery, 
2 


18 


Rep.  No.  306. 

with  the  advantages  of  cheap  power,  untiring  industry,  and  rigid  but 
vigorous  economy,  to  reach  a  degree  of  merit  in  their  fabrics,  at  a  cost  so 
low  that  they  can  sell  them  to  the  shipping  merchants  at  moderate  prices. 
Ey  these  shipping  merchants  they  are  exported  to  different  foreign  mar¬ 
kets,  and  there  enter  into  successful  competition  with  the  fabrics  of  Great 
Britain,  and  every  other  country  in  the  world.  Farmers  and  laborers, 
mechanics,  and  every  description  of  workingmen  in  the  whole  extent  of 
the  United  States,  are  provided  with  this  leading  article,  at  a  lower  price 
than  it  could  be  permanently  furnished  at  by  any  foreign  workshops,  even 
should  they  be  disposed  to  treat  us  justly,  if  we  were  again  subject  to  their 
tender  mercies,  by  having  no  manufactures  for  ourselves.  Mechanics, 
and  other  operatives  in  our  factories,  elevated  in  the  scale  of  being  above 
the  corresponding  class  abroad,  not  crushed  by  the  iron  heel  of  privileged 
orders,  but  erect  in  the  majesty  of  human  nature,  are  paid  higher  wages 
and  enjoy  more  leisure  and  comforts  than  are  dreamed  of  elsewhere. 
Would  it  be  believed  in  the  loathsome  dungeons  of  mining  districts,  now 
so  well  authenticated  as  the  dark  abodes  of  human  degradation,  ignorant, 
naked  and  deformed,  or  among  the  sickly  tenants  of  various  manufac¬ 
turing  establishments,  that  the  female  operatives  of  Lowell  have  found 
leisure,  spirit,  and  education,  among  their  own  numbers,  to  carry  on  a 
literary  journal  ? 

Manufactures  created  on  individual  account  exceed  any  others.  Those 
of  boots  and  shoes  are  produced  to  the  extent  of  fifty  millions  of  dollars, 
and  employ  upwards  of  one  hundred  thousand  persons.  This  great 
amount  of  business  is  carried  on  without  any  connexion  with  corporations. 
It  is  sustained  entirely  by  individual  enterprise.  No  machinery  is  em¬ 
ployed  ;  no  large  combination  of  wealth  is  concentrated  to  aid  in  con- 
ending  with  the  fixed  capital  of  European  manufacturers. 

The  home  market  provided  by  the  enterprise  of  the  manufacturers  is 
not  confined  to  a  mere  consumption  of  the  bread-stuffs  of  the  West,  by  the 
artisans  of  distant  parts  of  the  country.  Machinery  and  domestic  goods 
themselves  are  large  consumers  of  domestic  productions.  Not  many  months 
ago,  one  of  the  ample  products  of  the  Western  States  was  almost  thrown 
away,  or,  as  was  said,  actually  burned  for  fuel,  like  the  carcasses  of  sheep 
in  some  of  the  regions  of  South  America.  Now  vast  quantities  of  lard- 
oil  are  made  by  the  swine  growers  ;  and  the  introduction  of  it  into  a  single 
woollen  manufactory  is  at  this  moment  a  saving  of  ten  thousand  dollars  a 
year.  The  wool  was  formerly  oiled  with  olive  or  sperm-oil,  at  a  cost  of 
from  90  to  120  cents  the  gallon,  and  lard-oil,  which  is  in  all  respects  as 
good,  if  not  better,  is  now  used,  which  costs  60  cents  a  gallon.  Other 
productions  of  the  West  are  finding  their  way  to  profitable  markets  with 
no  less  certainty.  Bread-stuffs  will  scarcely  look  for  purchasers  to  any 
great  extent  in  foreign  countries  as  long  as  corn  laws  prevail,  or  fertile 
soils  are  to  be  found  at  comparatively  short  distances.  Four  per  cent, 
from  the  whole  United  States  have  sought  a  precarious  and  not  diminished 
market  abroad,  while  all  besides  must  find  consumers  among  the  prosper¬ 
ous  and  robust  of  our  own  land.  A  swelling  population  exhibits  per¬ 
petual  increase,  which  is  augmented  by  combined  circumstances  beyond 
that  of  any  other  country;  for  it  has  the  varied  momentum  of  moral  and 
natural  causes.  Free  institutions  and  equal  laws  are  united  with  great 
influx  of  foreign  citizenship,  unlimited  territory,  prolific  soil,  subsistence 


19 


Rep.  No.  306. 

easily  obtained,  and  sources  of  comfort  which,  if  less  refined,  are  more  dif¬ 
fusive  and  better  calculated  for  the  mass  of  mankind  than  any  that  can 
be  found  elsewhere.  The  consequence  is,  that  the  number  of  mouths  to  be 
fed  increases  with  unprecedented  rapidity.  What  is  of  no  less  conse¬ 
quence  to  the  agriculturist,  the  relative  number  of  his  own  class  dimi¬ 
nishes,  while  that  of  persons  engaged  in  manufacturing  pursuits  more 
than  proportionally  increases,  for  it  draws  from  the  commercial  ranks 
besides.  With  all  the  uncertainties  of  legislation  to  which  the  nation  has 
been  exposed,  the  comparison,  exhibited  by  the  census  of  two  periods,  twen¬ 


ty  years  distant,  is  as  follows  : 

In  1820,  the  persons  employed  in  agriculture  were  -  -  2,070,646 

In  1840,  ---------  3,719.951 

Making  a  decrease  from  83.4  to  80.4  per  cent,  of  the  whole  population. 
In  1820,  the  persons  employed  in  commerce  were  -  -  72,493* 

In  1840, . -117,607 

Being  a  decrease  from  2.9  to  2.5  per  cent. 

In  1820,  the  persons  employed  in  manufactures  were  -  349,506 

In  1840, .  791,749 

Being  an  increase  from  13.7  to  17.1  per  cent. 


It  is  fair  to  presume  that  an  absence  of  fluctuation  in  the  laws  and  a 
tendency  of  the  arts  to  promote  each  other,  will  hereafter  cause  to  he  ex¬ 
hibited  still  more  striking  relative  differences.  Consumers  are  found  not 
only  among  the  cotton  printers  of  Massachusetts  and  the  miners  and  fur¬ 
naces  of  Pennsylvania,  but  the  vast  variety  of  multiplied  artisans — tan¬ 
ners,  curriers,  shoemakers,  saddlers,  paperrimkers,  printers,  glassmakers, 
type-founders,  brickmakers,  painters,  &c,,  &c.,  &c.,  throughout  the  land. 
Let  this  market  for  the  agriculturist  be  destroyed  and  where  will  he 
stand  ? 

It  is  often  asked  with  apparent  triumph,  if  protection  has-  done  its 
office,  and  American  fabrics  have  been  successful  in  the  competition,  why 
should  a  seemingly'protective  duty  still  be.required?  An  answer  is  easily 
to  be  found.  1st.  Great  capitalists  abroad  might  well  be  content  to  enter 
the  lists  again,  if,  by  underselling  at  a  loss,  they  could  induce  a  purchase 
of  inferior  goods  long  enough  to  break  down  less  richly  endowed  domestic 
establishments.  A  British  statesman  long  since  officially  declared  that 
ie  it  was  worth  while  to  incur  a  loss  upon  the  first  exportation,  in  order, 
by  the  glut,  to  stifle  in  the  cradle  those  rising  manufactories  in  the  United 
States  which  the  war  had  forced  into  existence,  contrary  to  the  natural 
course  of  things.”  A  loss  it  can  scarcely  be  called.  It  is  the  policy  of 
great  manufacturers  to  sell  off  their  surplus  stock,  to  be  shipped  away  at 
any  hazard  of  sales.  Prices  must  be  sustained  at  home,  at  the  risk  of 
occasional  sacrifice.  A  small  quantity,  forced  upon  an  already  glutted 
market,  would  cause  the  fall  in  price  of  all  that  immense  quantity  re¬ 
quired  for  the  home  trade,  which  is  infinitely  more  important,  because 
more  extensive,  various,  and  certain,  than  that  of  the  United  States. 

In  the  next  place,  it  has  been  already  intimated  that  our  native  supe¬ 
riority  is  yet  limited  to  articles  of  coarse  fabric  and  common  use.  The 
line  is  narrow  which  separate’s  them  from  finer  goods.  It  will  in  time  be 
passed.  At  present,  the  English  manufacturer  is  skilled  beyond  us.  The 
very  humidity  of  his  climate  renders  the  working  of  the  light  threads  of 
delicate  fabrics  easier  than  under  our  brighter  skies,  and  in  a  less  humid 
and  more  transparent  atmosphere.  This  advantage,  arising  from  what  is 


20 


Rep.  No.  306. 

in  most  respects  an  evil,  must  be  counteracted  by  longer  practice  and 
greater  adroitness  than  have  been  yet  attained.  Our  cheap  water-power 
iloes  not  extend  its  peculiar  benefits  to  the  more  delicate  and  finer  goods, 
which  can  be  made  as  readily  with  the  use  of  steam.  Less  power  is  re¬ 
quired  to  drive  machinery  on  the  lighter  than  the  heavier  article.  The 
British  workman  employs  machines  to  mix  a  portion  of  the  poor  short 
staple  (India  or  Surat)  cotton  with  the  better  material  of  American 
growth,  the  cost  being  about  half,  and  the  appearance  of  the  fabric,  when 
bleached,  not  inferior,  although  less  strong  and  durable,  and  capable  of 
much  less  service.  Wages  make  a  much  wider  difference  in  the  construc¬ 
tion  of  fine  than  of  coarse  goods.  A  pound  of  cotton  requires  a  much 
greater  extent  of  labor  to  be  worked  into  the  one  than  the  other.  Hand- 
loom  weavers  are  paid  in  one  country  eight  shillings  and  six  pence  a 
week,  and  similar  operatives  in  the  other  five  dollars,  or  more  than  double 
the  amount.  Great  perseverance  and  an  active  demand,  concurring  with 
improved  machinery  and  other  advantages  already  adverted  to,  have 
counterbalanced  the  item  of  high  wages  as  to  the  useful  and  plainer 
articles,  but  have  not  effected  a  similar  result  as  to  those  which  are  richer 
and  more  highly  wrought.  To  remove  or  greatly  reduce  the  impost  on 
either  would  be  to  expose  the  whole  to  risks  which  they  have  more  than 
once  successfully  encountered,  and  escaped  from  the  imminent  peril  not 
unscathed. 

Mercantile  interests  are  not  overlooked  in  the  provisions  which  are 
asked  for  the  supply  of  revenue  and  the  support  of  manufactures.  They 
are,  on  the  contrary,  directly  as  well  as  indirectly  promoted.  New  objects 
of  merchandise,  new  and  increased  freights  for  shipping,  are  the  results. 
While  domestic  soil  and  culture  produce,  some  times,  the  essential  raw 
materials,  and  the  hands  to  work  them,  many  and  perhaps  most  of  the 
incidents  to  successful  labor  are  transported  from  abroad.  England  and 
Scotland  do  not  send  the  plainer  carpetings,  as  formerly ;  but  cargoes  of 
South  American,  Smyrna,  and  African  coarse  wools,  load  our  own  ships 
for  the  manufacture  of  Ingrain  carpets,  which,  retailed  at  fifty  cents  the 
yard,  are  sold  throughout  the  country,  as  cheaper  and  better  commodities 
by  half  than  those  for  which,  not  long  since,  we  were  indebted  to  foreign 
looms.  Our  tonnage,  which  is  employed  in  transporting  these  wools,  and 
coffee,  and  Brazil  sugar,  for  refining.  Ac.,  from  South  America,  goes 
proudly  freighted  with  native  products  in  return.  It  is  confidently  be¬ 
lieved  that  American  goods  have  been  shipped  within  the  last  eight 
months  to  China,  to  pay  for  every  ounce  of  tea  that  will  be  imported 
during  the  whole  year.  To  this,  and  other  similar  circumstances,  is  to  be 
ascribed  the  fact  that,  while  importations  have  been  large,  money  is  cheap 
and  abundant,  and  foreign  exchanges  low.  Wool  from  South  America 
and  other  countries,  and  cheap  sugars  from  Brazil,  supply  particular 
manufactories  of  no  inconsiderable  extent.  But  the  demand  is  already 
great,  and  may  be  infinitely  various,  which  will  employ  shipping  and 
nurse  seamen  in  the  transportation  of  drugs  and  dyes,  (logwood,  indigo,, 
madder,  lac-dye,  mungeet,  annatto,  and  an  innumerable  rest,)  for  manu¬ 
facturing  not  carpets  only,  hut  a  vast  variety  of  cotton,  as  well  as  wool¬ 
len  and  other  goods. 

The  aim  of  a  discriminating  tariff  is  to  benefit  every  part  of  the  coun¬ 
try.  A  southern  planter  purchases  his  domestic  goods  as  low  as  a  north¬ 
ern  merchant,  and  both  have  attained  the  diminished  price  through  the 


21 


Rep.  No.  306. 

aid  of  the  domestic  manufacturer,  or,  if  you  will,  notwithstanding  his 
agency.  An  eastern  shopkeeper  pays  as  dearly  for  imported  fancy  arti¬ 
cles  of  luxury  or  use  as  an  agent  on  the  spot  of  a  similar  tradesman  who 
carries  on  business  in  the  far  West.  The  rights,  privileges,  and  immuni¬ 
ties  of  the  Constitution  are  preserved.  Transportation  costs  as  much  from 
the  New  York  warehouse  of  the  foreign  manufacturer  in  one  street,  as 
from  the  New  York  warehouse  of  the  domestic  manufacturer  in  the  next, 
and  no  more.  No  preference  is  given  ;  no  advantage  is  obtained.  If 
the  manufacturer  happen  to  derive  a  questionable  profit  from  one  descrip¬ 
tion  of  enterprise,  the  merchant  does  the  like  from  another,  and  the  planter 
from  a  third.  Duties  in  the  aggregate  are  the  same.  They  are  to  be 
limited,  it  is  admitted,  by  the  demands  for  revenue.  Were  particular  arti¬ 
cles  rendered  dearer  (which  is  denied)  by  discrimination,  others,  by  the 
same  discrimination,  and  according  to  the  same  rule,  would  be  rendered 
cheaper,  and  a  community  which  uses  all  is  unaffected  by  special  assess¬ 
ment.  The  theory  which  insists  upon  the  palpable  effect  of  increased  price 
from  increased  duty,  which,  as  it  asserts,  adds  exactly  so  much  to  the 
foreign  cost,  overlooks  the  difference  in  the  doctrine  of  causes  and  effects 
in  different  sciences.  In  pure  mechanics  and  in  the  mere  action  of  physi¬ 
cal  things,  similar  causes  invariably  produce  similar  effects.  But  when 
the  caprices  of  arbitrary  will,  the  subtleties  of  avarice,  or  the  combina¬ 
tions  and  calculations  of  trade  and  commerce,  are  the  ever-varying  influ¬ 
ences  that  govern,  rules  of  natural  philosophy  no  longer  prevail.  Motive 
and  desire  are  mixed  with  mere  mechanical  impulse,  and  results  are  ascer¬ 
tained  (and  then  not  always  uniformly)  by  experience  alone.  If,  indeed, 
a  whole  range  of  horizontal  duties  were  fixed,  far  beyond  the  standard  of 
revenue,  so  as  to  compel  the  farmer  to  pay  for  his  ploughshare,  and  the 
shopkeeper  for  his  cutlery,  more  than  they  are  really  worth,  and  the  con¬ 
sequence  should  be  that  neither  the  one  nor  the  other  derived  any  possible 
benefit  from  the  tax,  while  the  artisan  and  the  artisan’s  employer  grew 
rich,  we  could  perceive  the  inequality  and  the  reason  for  complaint.  All 
this  is  a  theory  which  has  no  foundation  in  fact.  Add,  that  the  grower  of 
articles  which  are  largely  exported,  pays  the  entire  duty  upon  those  which 
are  imported  in  return,  and  the  theory  is  fully  stated.  It  requires  only 
to  he  confronted  with  an  opposite  state  of  facts,  viz  :  that  no  more  reve¬ 
nue  is  raised  from  duties  than  the  treasury  requires  ;  that  no  one  commo¬ 
dity  is  taxed  with  a  view  to  encourage  a  corresponding  one,  unless  that 
corresponding  domestic  commodity  becomes  cheaper  and  better  for  pur¬ 
poses  of  general  use;  and  (now)  that  the  price  of  imported  goods  is  paid 
to  a  certain  and  an  increasing  extent,  by  sending  abroad  manufactures 
which  are  objects  of  discrimination,  and  the  theory  will  not  command 
assent.  The  planter  who  receives  payment  for  his  crops,  by  selling  bills 
of  exchange,  or  by  importing  specie  in  return,  surely  pays  no  duties  by 
any  hypothesis.  If  merchandise  be  preferred  by  him  as  the  subject  of  im¬ 
portation,  it  is  only  because  the  profit  upon  it  will  more  than  absorb  them, 
and  he  enjoys  the  double  advantage  of  agriculture  and  commerce  combin¬ 
ed.  When,  in  point  of  fact,  he  sells  his  cotton  to  the  shipper  at  home,  he 
pays  no  duty  even  in  theory,  and  the  purchaser  is  enabled  to  make  his 
gains  in  defiance  of  the  cost  of  transportation  and  the  exactions  of  the 
custom-houses  abroad  and  at  home.  Other  causes  must  be  sought  for 
diminished  crops  in  some  places  and  successful  rivalry  in  others,  besides 


22 


Rep.  No.  306. 

prosperous  and  profitable  competition  on  the  part  of  distant  manufac¬ 
tories,  with  the  accustomed  efforts  of  the  old  world. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind,  that  while  that  part  of  the  country  which  oh 
jects  to  the  encouragement  of  manufactures  contributes  largely  in  one  de¬ 
scription  of  productions  to  general  affluence,  the  manufacturing  sections 
gather  their  rich  offerings  from  various  sources,  and  place  them  all  upon 
a  common  altar.  The  middle  States  produce  32.7  of  all  the  fruits  of  agri¬ 
culture,  42.  of  manufactures,  41.6  of  commerce,  64.3  of  mining,  40.7  of 
the  forest,  and  16.4  of  the  fisheries.  If  790,479,275  pounds  of  cotton  are 
gathered  for  exportation  and  home  consumption,  615,525,302  bushels  of 
Indian  corn,  wheat,  rye,  oats,  buckwheat,  and  barley,  are  furnished  almost 
exclusively  for  the  nourishment  of  human  and  animal  life  at  home,  while 
cotton  goods  are  manufactured  of  the  value  of  $46,350,453.  Of  something 
more  than  a  thousand  millions  in  value,  the  total  annual  products  of  in¬ 
dustry  in  all  the  Scates,  $390,558,303  are  derived  from  New  York,  New 
Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  Delaware,  Maryland,  and  the  Districtof  Columbia. 
Each  section  vies  in  teeming  industry  with  all  the  rest.  Resemblances  are 
preserved  which  identify  sisters  of  one  great  family, .while  a  seeming  diver¬ 
sity  of  features  is  everywhere  discernible.  Masses  of  mineral  wealth — cop¬ 
per  and  lead,  coal  and  iron — are  waiting  only  to  be  disinterred  in  Pennsyl¬ 
vania,  Missouri,  Wisconsin,  and  Iowa.  Agricultural  productions,  without 
limit,  spring  up  at  the  command  of  the  husbandman  in  Illinois,  Michigan, 
Ohio,  and  Indiana.  Tobacco  and  rice  and  sugar  and  cotton  are  in  rich 
abundance  poured  forth  from  the  warm  regions  of  the  South  and  Southwest. 
Fisheries  and  the  loom  and  navigation  yield  their  full  quota  of  contribu¬ 
tion  to  national  wealth  and  power  in  the  East.  While  soil  and  labor  are 
thus  in  active  production  in  all  quarters  of  the  country,  almost  countless 
millions  of  acres  of  the  national  domain  are  ready  to  tempt  the  enter¬ 
prising  disposition  and  employ  the  untiring  energies  of  all  who  desire  to 
possess  broader  fields,  and  to  engage  in  fresher  employments  than  are  to 
be  found  in  the  ordinary  pursuits  of  civil  life.  No  less  than  127,724,046 
acres  of  unsold  public  land  are  now  in  the  market  at  minimum  prices,  ex¬ 
clusive  of  courses  surveyed  and  not  yet  ordered  for  sale,  and  of  land  yet 
to  be  surveyed.  With  such  variety  of  objects  in  the  reach  of  all,  and  in 
ample  and  happily  regulated  proportions  the  fruits  of  all,  there  would 
seem  to  be  scarcely  room  for  discontent  or  excuse  for  jealousy.  Many  of 
these  possessions  are  comparatively  recent  in  abundance  and  profitable  use. 
In  their  common  novelty  they  teach  a  lesson  how  all  the  rival  merits,  how 
all  the  mutually  emulating  efforts  of  each  section  of  the  country  may 
grow  up  and  expand  together  :  in  their  fresh  and  vigorous  display  they 
afford  an  earnest  of  greater  developments  of  yet  unexplored  resources  in 
the  not  distant  future.  Exhaustless  anthracite  regions,  which  now  supply 
in  many  accessible  districts  a  large  part,  and  in  some  substantially  the 
whole,  of  the  fuel  for  manufactures,  steam,  furnaces,  and  the  ordinary 
purposes  of  life,  were  within  five  and  twenty  years  treated  as  worthless 
tracts  of  barren  ground.  Cotton,  the  rich  staple  of  the  sunny  South, 
was,  nearly  in  the  business  recollection  of  living  men,  received  with  cau¬ 
tion  and  distrust  to  entry  at  a  British  custom-house,  because,  as  an  Ame¬ 
rican  product,  it  was  unknown.  This  fact,  related  in  the  House  of  Com¬ 
mons,  was  accompanied  by  the  undoubted  allegation  that  it  now  found  its 
way  freely  through  the  same  avenue  and  from  the  same  quarter  yearly  to 
the  extent  in  value  of  fifteen  millions  pounds  sterling.  At  the  com- 


23 


P  Rep.  No.  306. 

mencement  of  the  century,  this  same  commodity,  as  a  manufacture  in  the 
United  States,  was  limited  to  five  hundred  bales.  It  made  slow  and 
feeble  advances  for  a  long  course  of  time.  Five  hundred  bales  only  were 
added  to  the  quantity  at  the  end  of  five  years.  In  1810  it  reached  but 
eighty-nine  thousand  more.  The  value  of  domestic  cotton  manufactures 
of  1840,  after  deducting  one-third  for  the  value  of  the  raw  material,  and 
leaving  two -thirds  for  the  wages  of  labor  and  the  profits  of  capital,  was 
$ 53,168,047.  Such  an  increasing  market  could  not  require  many  years 
to  enable  it  to  receive  and  consume  all  of  the  products  of  the  American 
States,  and  to  leave  the  British  markets  in  the  unenvied  enjoyment  of 
whatever  their  East  Indian  colonies  might  produce. 

Never  was  an  important  measure  resorted  to  in  which  the  people  had  so 
deep  an  interest,  with  so  little  call  from  the  people.  If  an  intimation  came 
up  to  Congress  that  any  partial  and  slightly -extended  evil  was  believed  to 
exist  under  the  present  regulations,  inquiry  was  immediately  made,  and 
the  report  was  proved  to  be  unfounded.  A  memorial,  for  example,  was 
presented,  setting  forth  high  prices  of  hardware.  Information  was  at  once 
received  contradictory  of  the  statements  which  it  contained.  The  same 
articles  were  enumerated,  and  the  errors  in  relation  to  them  were  exposed. 

Anvils,  which  were  said  to  be  worth  eighteen  shillings  sterling,  are 
shown  to  be  very  inferior,  and  little  used,  and  are  now  sold  one  cent  per 
pound  cheaper  than  before  the  present  tariff.  A  good  article  costs  not 
eighteen,  but  thirty-two  shillings. 

Brass  battery  kettles.  The  price  has  been  reduced  since  the  tariff,  and 
the  imported  article,  principally  from  Germany,  is  two  cents  per  pound 
higher  than  the  American. 

Butt  hinges,  of  cast  iron,  are  made  as  low  as  those  of  the  same  quality 
were  ever  imported. 

Hammers,  steel-faced,  for  blacksmiths  and  carpenters,  are  made  at  less 
prices  in  this  country,  than  are  charged  for  those  imported. 

Sad-irons  are  made  here  at  three  and  a  half  cents  cash.  Imported  sad¬ 
irons  before  the  tariff,  cost  four  and  a  half  to  five  cents. 

American  iron-wire  is  now  sold  at  thirty-five  per  cent,  discount.  The 
same  article  was  sold  at  twenty-five  per  cent,  discount  before  the  tariff, 
being  now  about  fourteen  per  cent,  cheaper  to  the  consumer. 

Rosehead  iron  wrought-nails  are  sold  to  consumers  two  cents  per  pound 
cheaper  than  before  the  tariff,  and  are  made  here  better  than  the  imported 
article. 

Cross-cut  and  pit  arc  saws  are  made  here  fully  to  supply  the  demand,  at 
nearly  ten  per  cent,  cheaper  than  before  the  tariff. 

Iron  screws,  called  wood-screws,  of  home  manufacture,  are  sold  at  thirty 
to  thirty-five  per  cent,  discount,  and  before  the  tariff  it  was  twenty  to 
twenty-five  per  cent.,  being  a  difference  to  the  consumer  of  about  fourteen 
per  cent,  more,  and  a  better  article. 

Pins  in  packs  are  made  largely  in  this  country,  and  are  sold  ten  cents 
per  pack  cheaper  than  before  the  tariff.  Pins  in  pounds  are  about  ten  per 
cent,  cheaper  in  the  country  of  production,  than  they  were  before  the 
tariff. 

On  these,  and  like  manufactures  of  iron,  it  is  obvious  that  public  con¬ 
venience  requires  no  change.  Yet  a  change  is  contemplated,  so  considera¬ 
ble  in  itself,  and  so  disastrous  in  its  effects,  that  it  cannot  fail  to  excite 
alarm.  While.a  moderate  abatement  is  proposed  in  the  duties  on  bars  and 


24 


Rep.  No.  306. 

bolts  of  iron,  and  one  not  very  considerable  on  that  which  is  manufactured 
wholly  or  in  part  by  rolling,  so  heavy  a  reduction  is  contemplated  on 
various  kinds  of  manufactures,  as  to  condemn  the  raw  material  to  disuse. 

It  may  be  proper,  in  passing,  to  notice  the  proposed  disastrous  and 
doubly  inappropriate  provision  relative  to  the  article  of  wool.  Coarse 
wool  is,  and  (it  is  thought)  can  be  grown  to  a  very  small  extent  in  this 
country,  although  useful  for  manufacture.  Upon  this  the  bill  proposes  to 
raise  the  duty.  The  finer  qualities  are  grown  by  the  great  body  of  farmers 
in  certain  sections,  and  are  susceptible  of  endless  extent ;  yet,  upon  them 
the  duty  is  to  be  greatly  reduced.  It  is  confidently  believed  that  the 
time  is  not  distant  when  American  grown  wool  will  be  adequate  to  the 
entire  demand  of  the  nation.  The  class  of  farmers,  (the  largest  and  not 
the  least  respectable  among  us,)  would  experience,  in  the  culture  of  their 
wool  staple,  a  blow  that  must  compel  them  to  abandon  it,  if  the  bill  should 
p<iss# 

On  other  great  staples — linens,  silks,  and  worsteds,  it  is  believed  there 
has  been  no  rise  in  price.  If  cottons  have  advanced  in  a  degree  propor¬ 
tioned  to  the  rise  in  the  raw  material,  the  cost  is  still  low,  and  the  supply 
abundant.  Such  is  the  case  with  all  the  various  commodities  necessary  or 
useful  to  the  different  classes  of  society.  On  every  account  a  more  in¬ 
opportune  moment  could  not  well  have  been  selected  to  strike  at  the  estab¬ 
lished  law.  The  undersigned  are  at  a  loss  for  a  single  argument  in  favor 
of  the  movement.  When  the  nation  is  prosperous,  revenues  abundant, 
and  not  excessive,  business  active,  specie  almost  a  superfluity,  loans  below 
the  rate  of  legal  interest  and  easily  attainable,  employment  of  industry  at 
hand,  wages  liberal,  exchanges  low,  credit  of  the  Government  at  the  highest 
point,  an  absence  of  all  pecuniary  inflation,  and  an  apparent  prudence  in¬ 
stilled  into  the  operations  of  trade,  together  with  well-grounded  hope  that 
the  happy  restoration  of  confidence  which  has  been  effected  will  long  con¬ 
tinue,  and  a  firm  assurance  that  all  these  gratifying  circumstances  began 
to  appear  at  the  earliest  moment  of  the  operation  of  the  tariff  as  it  is,  and 
have  not  ceased  to  gain  strength  during  an  uninterrupted  course  of  eighteen 
months, — all  the  interests  of  the  country,  its  agriculture  and  commerce 
no  less  than  its  manufactures,  seem  to  plead  in  supplicating  tones  that 
they  may  be  thus  far  let  alone.  It  is  in  the  power  of  legislation  to  dispel 
these  bright  prospects,  and  to  deny  a  continuance  of  these  rich  possessions. 
But  patriotism  and  sound  policy  forbid  the  blow  that  might  be  fatal  to  the 

prosperity  of  the  Republic.  j  R.  INGERSOLL, 

D.  D.  BARNARD. 


